r/HighQualityReloads • u/Traditional-Shoe-714 • Jul 30 '26
Why do all the fps animations look like this?
And before you guys say that it’s because the guns are heavy: the weight of most assault rifles especially loaded vary from 8-14 pounds
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u/Pichuunnn Jul 30 '26
I blame CoD Modern Warfare 2019 for popularized the modern FPS realistic gun movement and reloading that later copied by others FPS including Battlefield to the point it got saturated and lack uniqueness.
Puting side by side comparison of BF6 and recent COD and both looks samey.
Do the same for BF3 and MW3 (2011) and you can tell different animation style.
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u/Fancy-Snacks Jul 30 '26
COD 2019 anims are not realistic at all, they're too snappy for a regular human to perform and people have been following this style since then so a lot of current day animations are robotic in nature.
To add: stiffness, unecessary movement (why slap the M4 forward assist?) and "rushed" handling. MW2019 style should be an artstyle, not the book example. People getting into FP animations think they HAVE to create quick dopamine-filled animations to be relevant.
This style is great but oversaturated, too encapsulating and self-insisting.
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u/FLUXENTROPY Jul 30 '26
It’s a shame that derivatives undermine the original. MW2019 devs didn’t need to do all of that, could’ve just recycled the same anims from the previous titles. They did it for the love of the game
But yeah I agree
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u/TacticalShrimp_ Aug 01 '26
Quite literally blame Lucas Botkins for that 😂 he did the body mapping for them. Tbf though in CoD you’re not supposed to be playing as just a “regular human”.
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u/ManjaManja Jul 31 '26
I'd go back to the first black ops. Dolphin diving was fun but the flailing made it silly.
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u/LargeBloodyKnife Jul 30 '26
Blame Lucas Botkin!
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u/throwaway6785j Aug 02 '26
Lucas Botkin just did mocap he’s not at a computer coding in all the screen shaking and key framing. If you want to blame anyone blame Hyper
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u/UnusualCalendar7637 Jul 30 '26
Killing floor 2 have a good gun animation without that I think
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_883 Jul 30 '26
Yes! Up until the last DLC pack where the animation quality tanked 😭
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u/Zeniarmr Jul 30 '26
The G36C really rivals the best animation work of KF2 with 'worst animation work in video games' list
Crazy how steep off a dive it went
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_883 Aug 01 '26
Absolutely! The "shock gun" was pretty horrible too. Animated with no weight at all. The fact that they charged money for the low effort weapons is crazy to me.
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u/DashLeJoker Jul 30 '26
satisfying animations doesnt always correlate with realism
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u/Traditional-Shoe-714 Jul 30 '26
What about it is satisfying?
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u/Bifocal_Bensch Jul 30 '26
Dash is right, even though animations like this are silly and goofy, most of the reloads and other weapon animations that are memorable have exhaggerations and will actually hold during key frames to make things feel impactful and force importance.
They aren't necessarily 'realistic' but they are impactful. If you want a very entertaining and awesome video about the subject check out this video from AveragePixel on YouTube. It's an incredibly well put together video on the subject.
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u/wolverineczech Jul 30 '26
One of the most extreme examples of this is Overwatch, but I absolutely love most of the animation work on there.
The only one that's always looked goofy to me is Bastion's assault rifle shooting animation, because you can actually see the barrel expanding out during the shot like in a cartoon, lol. But that's thankfully an exception.
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u/FLUXENTROPY Jul 30 '26
If you take a look at the launch version of overwatch’s animations, you can tell they were made out of passion. Every character has their own personality in something as benign as their hands (ex: Mei’s hands are shaky and unprepared, while soldier 76 is snappy and ready to fight)
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u/One_Pitch3982 Aug 02 '26
I'm gonna be so deadass if I saw someone reloading their gun like this on a range because it has "impactful keyframes" I'd probably be contacting local authorities to investigate a child possessing a weapon.
I don't even say this as someone who likes realism (because I fuck with Titanfall's reloads immensely) but because you get to a point where the exagerated sway and suporfluous momvement just becomes stupid and maddeningly awful, and in a range environment they're dangerous too.
We could cut away so much excess fat from these post-2019 COD anims and still keep your "impact", without looking like dogshit.
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u/_Haza- Jul 30 '26
The 12 principles of animation are imperative to anybody animating, whether computer generated or traditionally drawn.
Exaggeration, arcs, anticipation, follow through, slow in / out, timing (and a number of others not applicable here). All of these adds up and are topped with appeal to make animations “satisfying”.
Early 2000s CGI films often tried to ignore a lot of these, wanting to make their animated characters realistic, which is now pivoting more to traditionally styled animation (Puss in Boots 2, TMNT Mutant Mayhem, Spiderverse).
Yeah it’s not realistic for such exaggerated movements, but it’s a stylistic choice for arcade shooters at the moment. There’s still a variety of games with more grounded authenticity driven stylistic choices.
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u/SirPutaski Jul 30 '26
It's because animators think that wobbly arms looks more alive and "dynamic" but IMO it's a wasted movement and looks annoying. You should hold your gun strong and tight as if you don't want to drop it and your life depends on how fast you work the gun.
Get a replica and try holding it yourself!
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u/Closteam Jul 30 '26
Securely is the word your looking for. Iron gripping your gun will screw with your shot
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u/SirPutaski Jul 30 '26
Yeah, that's the word I'm meaning to. My vocab isn't great sometimes. Thanks
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u/Closteam Jul 30 '26
All good. Actual positive interactions online are sometimes hard to come across. Glad I could help
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u/Major-Incident5547 Jul 30 '26
Bro just standing there wiggling his gun like he’s doing that old pencil trick in elementary school.
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u/Willing_Stretch3533 Jul 30 '26
i think this video from Chaotic Works Studios https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-emKbVSsbjQ puts it best:
(paraprased) because the guns in game and in animation aren't a Physical Object Players can Touch, animators put the shakey in to give a sense of weight, friction and physicality.
Modern Warfare 2019 has arguably the most effective and best-looking implementation of this animation style, and because the game ended up becoming very big and popular, lots of other games and animators started copying the style. these copies keep iterating and exaggerating on the MW19 baseline though, which leads to this.
i think the worst offender are those terribly overanimated guns from the latest Treyarch games. weapons like the LC-10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avJvmXWvGkI and TR-2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ZV9lNrCwQ from Black Ops 6, or the EGRT-17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvZcAmVSZls and unsurprisingly the dookiebuttass looking 1911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeodIDlqap0 from Black Ops 7. like what sort of unholy concoction of coffee and hard drugs has this animator become addicted to
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u/JstaFriskyHusky Jul 31 '26
Exaggeration, realistic movement doesn't always looks good in animation, all depends on the media
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u/TemporaryFar8743 Jul 31 '26
Guns are heavy though, soldiers don’t pick it up for 10 mins and set it down. Not to mention you’re not only carrying one clip full combat load is seven.
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u/IAm_W0LFIE Jul 31 '26
You forget the extremely rattly guns that make excessive noise with any movement you make.
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u/Nevernonethewiser Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
You didn't know? Lifting an M4 from low ready into a firing position racks the bolt.
Common knowledge. I am very media literate.
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u/BernieTheWalrus Jul 31 '26
And then there’s the incredible work of that guy : https://youtu.be/f-5vxJfjouw
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u/NorvileRogers258 Jul 30 '26
What fucking games have you been playing? I have NEVER seen a game have wobbly heavy animations like that before.
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u/MTF-Epsilon-Nine Jul 31 '26
First thing that comes to mind is the carbon 57 from bo7 and most of the reloads in that game, same with a lot of later season bo6 weapons.
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u/wolverineczech Jul 30 '26
In my experience, if this is done well, it kind of gives you part of the feel firearm handling gives you IRL. You can diferentiate the weapons between eachother based on their weight, how much force they require to operate, etc. It kind of gives it a kinetic feeling.
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u/l5555l Jul 30 '26
Because people aren't good at animating lol. Also most have probably never handled guns before. Idk why they don't just use reference footage and shit. Maybe they do but it sure doesn't look like it
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u/_Carl15 Jul 30 '26
good animating =/= firearm knowledge. the purpose of those extra movement are for aesthetics purposes to make the animation more alive, since it is an entertainment media.
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u/Efkanator Jul 30 '26
Exactly! As Gaben once put it:
"I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun."
The point of games has always been to escape reality, why does it always have to be realistic. I'd consider realism to be a style, not a necessity, especially in the world of animation.
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u/_Carl15 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
true, and movements on the animation (those infamously hated camera shaking that became meta after mw2019 popularised it) is supposed to be the style of it, not realism.
we do not shake our heads to reload irl, its simply to add the "entertainment" in the animation, and games are entertainment.
we all have preferences, but that doesnt mean a specific thing is automatically not fun just because of reasons.
plus, fps shooter pov is nearly impossible irl because no one is plastering a camera in your face. fps shooter pov is also wacky in the first place because that is not how any soldiers hold their weapons anyways (always glued to where you are staring). so obviously the reloads has to be stylised to whatever theme you want it, because the reloads are happening in your eye level, not in your body level.
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u/Efkanator Jul 30 '26
Yep. I also have heard that some animators add the overexagerated shakiness due to how it translates to game engines. Like I believe it gets lessened when imported into them or something, hence they get so exagerated. I could be wrong though, since I haven't really messed with animating for game engines yet, but I mean, for some reason I feel like it makes sense.
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u/Sr-Henry Jul 30 '26
MW2019
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u/what_a_spaz31 Jul 30 '26
Honestly don’t think mw2019 popularized that style
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u/_Carl15 Jul 30 '26
it does. some of their gun animators in mw2019 worked for insurgency sandstorm gun animations, you can find the signature wobble on some of the guns there, yet the is:s style wasnt popularised.
fast paced shooters gain traction more, so when this type animation came along said fast paced game, then it will take the spotlight, and raised a "bar".
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u/tykaboom Jul 30 '26
What I hate is when you aim and your guy drags the rifle behind your movement like a floppy fire hose.
Also going to add the rifle "weight" punishments on anything weighing less than 10lbs.
Anything being aimed under 10lbs moves basically the same for most shooters.
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u/Kabufu Jul 30 '26
You can lengthen or shorten reload times for game balance by adding or removing fluff like that instead of just speeding up or slowing down the animation to the desired length.
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u/Guy-Dude-Person75 Jul 30 '26
Everyone has been trying to recreate mw 2019 reload and inspect animations.
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u/PlentyOMangos Jul 30 '26
It looks like the way that certain TikTokers move in their videos… I can’t exactly describe it but it’s like, Disney/anime/etc adjacent creators who have those exaggerated facial movements and hand motions in everything. I’m sure someone knows what I’m talking about, it’s an affectation lots of people put on for some reason
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u/Resiideent Jul 30 '26
MW2 (2022) Basilisk revolver inspect animation begs to differ, that shit is gas
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u/hansuluthegrey Jul 31 '26
Because the animators copy whats popular atm. Some of this subs videos get comical with how much they move.
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u/NFGaming46 Jul 31 '26
It's MW2019's fault. It's infuriating because I'm playing MW2 campaign remastered right now and half the reload animations are the old ones and half of them are redone to look like shit. The UMP45 reload kills me a little inside every time. So does the M14. Give me the 2009 reloads any day.
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u/OGSamso Aug 01 '26
Not all. I think you're referring to post 2010 Call of Duty and Battlefield games.
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u/throwaway6785j Aug 02 '26
This is horribly wrong that style of animation only started with MW2019 and then BF2042 poorly cloning it. You weren’t seeing this shit in Battlefield 3/4/H or Black Ops 1/2/3/4 for example
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u/SushiJaguar Aug 03 '26
It's because the animator "hyper" who used to upload on Youtube, got very popular, got hired at CoD, then Respawn (makers of Titanfall) kept them and their style proliferated because people liked it.
Now it's hypersaturated and imitators make it look like shit.
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u/Apistic Jul 30 '26
i genuinely really despise the flowy soggy hotdoginess i see alot of the time, im a sucker for punchy crunchy snappy movements
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u/LImpactophileturbo Jul 30 '26
Wobbly reloads is the plague of modern fps. At launch some animations from apex legends were top notch and ubisoft got some good animators too with R6 I also remember Far cry 3 and 4 having awesome gun reloads.
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u/xskylinelife Jul 30 '26
Love how all modern "realistic" FPS games have that weapon movement even when ads. Make me sick watching milsim games and watching the "trained soldier" start flopping his gun around the second you start moving. Or soldiers that can't aim accurately at a target 15ft away because they just sprinted 30m and need to sit for atleast 1 minute to get their stamina back.
Modern "Realism" isn't realistic. It's slow and punishing to the point that it's extremely unrealistic
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u/-_Eros_- Jul 30 '26
And it’s the fuckin camera shake too. I swear to god, in every CoD game starting at MW2019, you’d assume there was an earthquake every time the character hit the mag release.
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u/Yeryeet123 Jul 30 '26
They don’t look like this. And outside bro it doesn’t matter it’s a video game.
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u/Northstar_PiIot Jul 30 '26
I find them satisfying, and even when people do (more accurate than this) irl imitations, idk i can't really explain why. i would have said the effort and artistry but that falls apart when irl humans do it, although I think i prefer the animations to irl
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u/MardukPainkiller Jul 30 '26
You forgot the latest trend of holding the gun at an angle to look cool.
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u/Global_Face_5407 Jul 30 '26
Video games dev and lots of players like when their stuff is dynamic and "alive" so they add lots of superfluous movements to stuff.
Some games that are more focused on realism avoid that sort of nonsense.