In this tutorial, Animation Mentor alum and game animator Marta Perez Garcia breaks down how to plan and animate first person and POV shots that feel immersive, readable, and comfortable to watch. She covers what first person really means, where it shows up in games and film, practical tips for cameras and acting, and a simple Maya setup for POV animation.
Meet Marta
Marta Perez Garcia is a games animator and Animation Mentor alum who has been working in in‑game cinematics and gameplay animation for more than three years. She has contributed to titles such as Oblivion Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077 and is currently serving as an Associate Lead Animator on an unannounced project. Before focusing fully on animation, Marta worked at Blizzard Entertainment in France, first in project management on titles including Overwatch and Diablo, and later as a designer. Her production background across design, management, and animation informs her practical, studio‑focused approach to teaching, and she credits her studies at Animation Mentor with helping her make the transition into a full‑time animation career.
What First Person and POV Really Mean
Marta defines point of view, or POV, shots as moments where the audience sees the action from a character’s own viewpoint. The viewer looks through the eyes of the person leading the action and should feel as if they are inside that character.
Because the viewer is “living” the scene, the emotional experience of the audience becomes central. Whatever you want them to feel, you have to design the POV shot to communicate that directly, not just show what happens. This is a big reason POV is so common in games, where putting players inside a character’s head can heighten immersion and make them feel like the hero.
Key Traits of First Person Shots
Marta highlights several recurring traits in first person and POV work:
- Visible body parts: These shots often include hands and forearms, and sometimes feet or bits of the body, to give context and show interaction with objects, weapons, or the environment.
- Realistic style: POV is frequently used in more realistic animation because it mirrors how people actually see, although stylized projects can use it too.
- Subtle movement: Both character and camera motion tend to stay subtle so the audience can easily understand what is going on.
- High attention to detail: The viewer might only see hands, fingers, or pure camera movement, so small details in timing, shake, and interaction matter a lot.
- Gentle camera behavior: Subtle camera motion keeps the audience oriented and avoids dizziness or distraction, which is crucial when you want them to stay “inside” the character.
Subjective vs Objective POV
Marta distinguishes between two broad types of POV shots: subjective and objective.
- Subjective POV shows exactly what a specific character sees. The camera is their eyes, and you want the audience to experience events as that character does. This is common for immersive sequences, emotional moments, or gameplay views.
- Objective POV shows the action from some other character’s vantage point, not the main protagonist’s. For example, a horror shot from the perspective of a hidden observer watching someone in a house, or an over‑the‑shoulder view that includes the back of a head and shoulder while following another character.
Both can be powerful, but they serve slightly different storytelling goals. Subjective POV invites the viewer to become the character; objective POV lets them inhabit another watcher inside the scene.
Using POV in Games and Film
In entertainment, POV shots are often framed wide to give as much context as possible, sometimes using wider focal lengths to show paths, interactable objects, or environmental clues.
In games, this helps players see where to go and what to use. In films and series, wider POVs can convey environment and options while still feeling like a lived experience. These shots are frequently used to:
- Create suspense and tension.
- Build anticipation before a reveal.
- Deliver emotional impact by bringing the viewer close to the event.
Because the audience is so close to the action, these shots can leave a strong impression when used thoughtfully.
Planning First Person Shots
Marta stresses that planning is critical. Before animating, she recommends:
- Recording reference from the intended POV, with different camera positions and motions, so you can see how subtle or strong the movements should be.
- Testing how soft or abrupt camera moves can be while still remaining readable.
- Using reference to decide which camera angle best communicates the idea without making the motion confusing or uncomfortable.
A key guideline is to keep the camera near the character’s eye line so that the perspective feels like a believable head height and orientation. If the camera goes too high or too low, it may no longer feel like the character’s own view unless the scene specifically calls for lying down, crouching, or hiding.
Tips for Camera and Acting
Marta shares several practical tips for keeping POV animation clear and appealing:
- Avoid overly fast or distracting camera moves, which can pull the audience out of the shot instead of drawing them in.
- Think “acting small.” The character’s height, position, and direction of gaze are the main elements that keep viewers in the story.
- Avoid twinning in visible body parts such as hands or arms. Small asymmetries and varied poses create more organic, less stiff compositions.
She illustrates this with simple hand doodles: symmetric, mirrored hand poses feel flat, while offset, varied poses look more interesting and alive.
Reference Examples: Bike and Spy Shots
To show how subtle good POV motion is, Marta walks through reference clips in the Animation Mentor campus interface.
- In a bike‑riding POV, the camera sits near the rider’s head. The motion is soft and almost “drone‑like,” with gentle turns and small tilts corresponding to steering, bumps, and terrain changes. Hands and feet move up and down as the ground changes, and occasional quick adjustments of the view add realism while staying controlled.
- In a “spy” clip, she films her dog Poe while hiding. The viewer sees only the dog and the environment, not her body, but the camera behavior clearly communicates someone watching carefully and trying not to be seen. The motion is light and continuous, never so jerky that you lose track of what is happening.
These examples underline how much believability comes from small, motivated camera changes rather than big, flashy moves.
First Person Weapons and Gameplay Examples
Marta also shares first person weapon animations by her colleague Michael Terenko. In a shooter‑style setup:
- The camera remains largely stable so aiming stays clear.
- Quick, short camera reactions sell firing recoil, reloads, and other weapon actions.
- The movements are fast and strong enough to feel physical, but not so large that they disrupt focus on the target area.
She notes that if you removed the camera motion, the animations would still be solid, but they would lose much of their impact. Carefully planned camera reactions make the player feel like they are really holding and firing the weapon.
Even in live‑action reference, small natural shakes and adjustments of the camera when moving or reloading can inspire subtle POV camera animation on top of the underlying hand and weapon motion.
Setting Up a POV Rig in Maya
For her own example, Marta demonstrates a simple first person setup in Maya using the Animation Mentor Jules rig. She modifies the rig and camera so they behave more like a real first person game rig.
Key steps include:
- Deleting parts of the character mesh that the camera should never see, such as large sections of the torso or even the head, to avoid the camera intersecting the body.
- Keeping only what needs to be visible, such as the hands and maybe a bit of arm.
- Creating a custom camera and attaching it to a small hierarchy: a camera, a locator above it, and a main control above the locator.
She then parents this main camera control under one of the rig’s controls so the camera follows the character’s movement as the “bike” advances. Most of the translation keys go on the higher control, while the locator carries the rotation keys, allowing her to adjust view direction without constantly touching the camera node itself.
For the biking test, she parents hands to bike bars and feet to pedals, but keeps the camera as the most important element of the setup because it defines the viewer’s experience.
Preparing Rigs for POV Work
Marta points out that many production game rigs already come prepared for first person work, with hidden body parts and dedicated weapon or hand rigs. If you want to adapt an existing full‑body rig yourself, you can:
- Select the body mesh, switch to face mode, and delete faces you never need to see from the camera.
- Place the camera at an appropriate head height, then test movements to make sure you do not see unwanted mesh.
This keeps the camera from clipping through geometry and simplifies animation because you are only worrying about visible elements.
Continuing to Learn POV Animation
Marta closes by encouraging viewers to explore more resources on Animation Mentor’s site, including courses and free tutorials that cover both film and game paths. She notes that Animation Mentor training was critical in her own transition into animation and that there is now a dedicated game branch alongside cinema and TV‑focused tracks.
She invites questions on campus for any current Animation Mentor students curious about POV setups or wanting deeper advice on first person animation.
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