Game Animations

I think developers would want to see a little bit of everything,
you never know what you might be asked to work on. [;)]

Yeah, I reckon just gather as many different types as you can think of and i'm sure they'll narrow down what they want to see and what they don't need to see.
It's better to have too much than not enough!
-Parka

If you're talking about in a portfolio, think of it in terms of range of animation instead of specific animated actions. It's more helpful to guage a persons abilities from a range rather than a grab bag of idles/deaths/attacks - after all, your ability is what an employer seeks to assess you on.

To clarify, think of a range of animation, like subtle expression through to large full body actions, and then derive the specific animations from that. Even if it's just two completely polar types of animations which are done well, it's much better than 20 good idle and walk cycles. An example, you might do:

- subtle nervousness (like a suspect being questioned by the police). Fidgeting, eyes wandering, erratic blinking, twitchy and jerky head movements... it's all subtle yet very communicative of emotion.

- large acrobatic and full body feat (think over-the-top kung-fu opera style acrobatics). Expressive movement, transfer of weight and motion. All about large scale mass and motion.

hope this helps

Can I just say... that was a big help. I mean, I wasn't even the one asking for help in the first place, but i'm building my portfolio at the moment and was kind of stumped mysefl exactly what to do, but that seems like a very, very good idea.
Thank you!
-Parka

Thanks for the info J.I. Styles.

I would also like to share what I've learned from 'Career Animation Forum' (which was held in Federation Square, Melbourne) 20 seconds of quality smooth animation is enough, than showing a serious of animation that could probably last a minute or more.

Because the 3D industry in Australia is so small, you should specialise on atleast 2 areas in 3D e.g animation, rigging, modelling etc.

Sorry for replying so late.

Btw, check out some of the answers in my interview with [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sarticle.asp?art_ID=2147"]Lachlan (animator) from Pandemic[/url].

Thanks for the link Souri. That was indeed helpful.

the impression I got from a recent Digital Labours Federation Talk (that included staff from Rising Sun Pictures and ex RatBag) was that quality over quantity was the key- more than any other factor when they view a show reel. so I would say choose one aspect of one topic that you have mentioned and spend a sh*tload of time getting 1 or 2 really killer animations together.

I agree, but it really depends where you are applying, which really sucks!!!!!