Making it feel like a 'Movie'

Sometimes, a little bit of editing/camera work and different character models can make a world of difference to the same bit of animation.

1. For instance, here's a fight scene I shot in an introductory motion capture class applied to generic off-the-shelf characters (the old man is actor Kevin J. Ryan and the alien is classmate John Helton):

2. Next, I created some really basic crowd character models and used a segment of the same motion on them, but changed the camera angle:

(This step is important because it verifies that my models have been rigged correctly)

3. That looked ok, so I spent some more time on the camera angles to previz the sequence as it might take place in the film:

4. Hmm, what about with tighter editing, better looking characters and some lighting?

5. And here's the final sequence:

All through this process, the actual animation on the characters was unchanged.