In this presentation, animator and Animation Mentor mentor Nicole Gregory explains what a technical animator does, why the role is vital on game projects, and how tech animators collaborate with animators, programmers, and designers. She also shares real examples from her own work and advice gathered from experienced tech animators on how to get into the field.
Meet Nicole Gregory
Nicole has worked on a range of game styles and genres; from third person shooters to mountain biking to character selection screens. She is currently an Animator working at Third Kind Games – A Virtuos Studio, working on MTB Mavrix.
Nicole mentors students in the 6-week Game Animation Fundamentals course at Animation Mentor and is also an alum of our 3D Character Animation program and Creature Animation courses.
What Is a Tech Animator
Nicole describes tech animators as the “lubricant” of the pipeline. They sit between disciplines and keep things running smoothly by combining knowledge of animation, tools, and game engines.
Depending on the studio and project, tech animators may:
- Build and maintain animation systems in engine, such as Unreal animation blueprints or Unity graph setups, so animators can drop clips in and focus on performance.
- Create tools and scripts that automate tedious steps, for example one‑button export and import pipelines from Maya to Unity or Unreal.
- Help solve technical challenges, refining systems with programmers when features need to be more robust or efficient.
They often straddle multiple areas, from rigging and engine work to basic scripting, and act as problem solvers whenever a feature touches both art and code.
Skills and Specializations
There is more than one type of tech animator. Nicole notes that specializations often depend on studio needs and personal strengths.
Examples she mentions:
- At a previous studio, a senior tech animator was highly specialized in Unity and Maya. He could build complex systems in Unity, knew MEL scripting for Maya, and even created a mini Animbot‑like toolset for animators. He was less comfortable in Unreal, which was outside his main focus.
- At her current studio, most tech animators are stronger in Unreal than Unity. They build systems and tools around Unreal’s animation blueprints, metahumana type workflows, and constantly changing engine features.
Because engines and tools evolve rapidly, tech animators must keep up with updates, like pipeline changes for metahuman setups or new motion matching systems, and stay aware of industry trends and release notes.
Her first tech‑animator friend advises:
- Pick a primary area, such as Unreal or Unity, and go deep into it.
- Track new features like motion matching, blueprint updates, and engine roadmaps.
- Research the tools used at your target studios and shape your learning accordingly.
Her second friend adds that tech animators benefit from:
- Strong rigging skills and understanding of anatomy.
- Comfort with multiple DCC tools such as Maya and possibly Blender.
- MEL and Python scripting to speed up workflows.
- Experience with animation blueprints or equivalent systems in engines.
- Good communication with designers and programmers about gameplay needs.
These skills transfer across tools, so expertise in one engine can help you pick up another more quickly.
A Real Tech Animation Example: The Truck Stunt
Nicole shares a detailed example from MTB Mavericks, a biking game where she acted in a tech animator‑like role on a Red Bull truck stunt feature. Two trucks drive past each other around a lake while the player can jump between them, mirroring a real stunt.
Key steps in building that feature:
- Defining the design
She worked with designers to decide where in the world the trucks should run, how they should loop around the lake, and how often they should pass each other. Metrics and track layout had to support both the stunt and normal gameplay. - Creating a placeholder asset
A 3D artist provided a rough truck model. It looked bad, but it gave her something to prototype with while systems were still being proven out. - Driving motion with a spline path
Nicole reused a spline path system she had originally built for animals. The truck mesh followed this procedural path driven by blueprints, rather than being fully keyframed. - Solving overlap and articulation
When turning, the long truck initially swung wide and risked knocking players off the track. To mimic real trailers, she and another tech animator added a “joint” by using multiple points: the front of the truck pointed toward one locator and the rear toward another, allowing the trailer section to overlap naturally on corners. - Handling terrain and collisions
They had to ensure the truck did not sink into the ground or vanish into the road when the spline dipped. That required extra logic and testing to keep the vehicle level and interacting correctly with the world. - Coordinating across departments
Coders and QA testers helped refine behavior and stress test the jump many times to ensure it worked reliably.
How Animators and Tech Animators Collaborate
Nicole says tech animators are “our best friends” as animators. They make life easier by building systems, catching integration issues, and enabling quick iteration on features.
A typical collaboration might look like:
- An animator creates placeholder clips for a new feature, such as pedaling uphill or “BMS” wall‑ride style cornering.
- The tech animator builds or adjusts engine systems that vary speed, lean, and difficulty based on slope or track geometry.
- The tech animator shares in‑engine screen recordings so animators can see how it feels in context without committing changes.
- The animator refines poses and timing based on gameplay feedback, not just how animation looks in Maya.
Nicole emphasizes the value of starting with placeholders rather than fully polished animations. If an animator spends a long time perfecting a Maya shot, only to find it does not work in game, they have to redo a lot of work. Quick, rough passes make it easier to adjust timing and behavior while the tech animator is still shaping the system.
She suggests:
- Leave your “animator cave” early and talk to tech animators, designers, and engineers.
- Review features together while they are still flexible.
- Remember that gameplay is king. The player only sees what happens in the game, not how perfect it looked in your DCC scene.
More Tech Animation Case Studies
Nicole briefly mentions other features that relied on tech animation at her studios:
- Uphill pedaling system
A system where pedaling became slower and more strenuous when riding uphill, requiring the player to shift gears to maintain momentum. This combined placeholder animations with engine logic and iterative tuning. - BMS cornering
A wall‑ride style cornering system where the bike leaned into turns. Tech animators built suspension and physics behavior, while she adjusted animations to feel smooth and responsive in game. - Character customization
On another project, tech animators created the whole customization system for clothing and accessories, coordinating with UI, audio, programmers, and designers. Animators then layered character reactions on top, such as examining a new hat or shirt. - Rig building and one‑button exports
At a previous studio, tech animators built the rigs and a one‑click pipeline to send animations from Maya into the engine, removing many manual steps from the process.
These examples show that tech animators often own or co‑own entire features, not just isolated tools.
Advice from Working Tech Animators
Nicole asked two tech animator friends to share their guidance. Key points they offered:
- Choose a focus area, such as Unreal, Unity, rigging, or animation blueprints, and learn it deeply.
- Stay on top of engine updates and community trends, like new Witcher engine features or motion matching demos.
- Study anatomy and rigging so you can build rigs that are pleasant to animate and fit production needs.
- Learn MEL and Python for automating repetitive tasks.
- Be comfortable moving between Maya, Blender, and other DCC tools as projects require.
- Communicate constantly with animators, designers, and programmers, both when gathering requirements and when iterating on rigs and systems.
One friend described being placed on a Blender‑based project after years in Maya. The underlying principles carried over, and regular feedback from animators helped refine unfamiliar rigs to make their lives easier. Another example involved building vehicle rigs without prior car‑mechanics experience by working closely with a vehicle designer to identify key behaviors and suspensions that needed to be represented.
Getting Started in Tech Animation
For those curious about the role, Nicole suggests:
- Experiment with building simple systems in your preferred engine, such as basic animation state machines or blueprint‑driven props.
- Play with rigging and scripting in Maya or Blender to understand tool building from the inside.
- Read resources such as “Technical Animation in Video Games” to get a broader picture of the discipline.
She also points to Animation Mentor’s Game Fundamentals course as a low‑risk way to explore games, since it touches on gameplay and cinematics and gives you a sense of where you might want to focus.
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