History Main / GoingThroughTheMotions

*** As mentioned in the page quote, there's also a generic "shake fist grr grr" motion used throughout the franchise that looks wrong no matter who is using it from Counselor Udina to a teenager.

-->'''Alice''': ''Fold-arms gesture'' It looks like there's a [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence foot-high]] wall in our path. We'll have to find a way around.
-->'''Bob''': ''Hands-on-hips gesture'' Can't we just climb over it?
-->'''Alice''': ''Hair-toss gesture'' What next? 'Alice, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality why don't we eat]]?' 'Alice, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou why is everything trying to kill us]]?' 'Alice, [[BottomlessBladder why don't we ever go to the toilet]]?' ''Fold-arms gesture'' You're full of it. Follow me!

-->'''Alice''': ''Fist-pump gesture'' Wooo! I caught way more fish than you!
-->'''Bob''': ''Head-tilt gesture'' ...Those are tin cans. ''Pointing-finger gesture'' Are you sure you know what a fish is?
-->'''Alice''': ''Fold-arms gesture'' Um, of course I do! I'm just... keeping my fish in the cooler! ''Hair-toss gesture'' Once I go get them, I'll win the contest for sure!

--->'''Character''': ''Points angrily, frowning''. How dare you accuse me of such things! I hate you!! ''Stops pointing, face blank''.
--->'''Nancy''': See you later.
--->'''Character''': ''Smiles''. Okay, bye.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' is notorious for this, to the point some of Phoenix Wright's movements have entered the wider nerd sphere. The writing is more than capable of carrying the emotions across, however, and most of the central characters have a fairly wide palette of actions. One character, Marvin Grossberg, only has two facial expressions (upset, and non-upset) due to another reason for the use of this trope -- they ran out of cartridge space, though this improves in the third game when he plays as Mia's co-consul in the first case.

-->'''Phoenix''': (*hands on desk* Tell *thumb and index finger resting on chin as if thinking* the *[[GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger points directly at Larry]]* truth!)
-->or (*hands on desk* Lie *thumb and index finger resting on chin as if thinking* like *points directly at Larry* a dog!)
*** This signal was parodied in the non-canon DLC case in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice''.

** Bethesda's [[UsefulNotes/GameEngine Gambryo Engine]] games from the ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' (''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'') and ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' (''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'') series lack even individualized gestures. This isn't so noticeable when its monologue being delivered in the "Talking Head" style which comprises the vast majority of dialgoue in these games, but it's highly noticeable in staging what are intended to be a dramatic in-engine cinematics. All models have the same wooden hand gestures which are reused whenever needed (ex. pulling levers, opening doors, etc.) with elbows locked at their sides and scant body language. Even the celebrity voice-acted characters do this (it must make Liam Neeson wince to see the movement associated with his voice). Any modder can find the vast library of idle animations the designers had at their disposal, but for whatever reason, very few were implemented.

* While all home console versions of ''UsefulNotes/RPGMaker'' force this to an extent due to disallowing custom assets, this is most prominent in ''RPG Maker 3'' for UsefulNotes/Playstation2, one of the only [=3D=] entries. Character animations during dialog have to be chosen from a dropdown list, with most of the options being very exaggerated movements.

* To the point of ridiculousness in ''[[Manga/DragonBall Dragon Ball Z]]: Burst Limit''. There's some scenes which are faithful reproductions of scenes from the anime, but for a lot of the side scraps they use a small amount of generic animations, merely replacing the characters. Characters will fall over in the same way, they'll be taken aback in the same way, and get beat up/beat someone up in the same way. It's not just limited to the cutscenes though -- there's also the Drama Pieces, which use a lot of the same animations.
* An attempt at an aversion occurred in ''VideoGame/TechRomancer''. That game had NO artificial atmospheric actions, somewhat justified by the fact that most characters are in giant robots, thus they wouldn't make idle motions. Thus, in cutscenes, no actions are made that are not already in the game. As such, one character tends to "disappear" at the end of cutscenes by using an attack that surrounds him in electricity, then jumping and letting the camera ([[SpecialEffectsFailure usually]]) pan away before he begins the descent of his jump.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has a mixed bag when it comes to emotions and animations. Survivors have several idle animations, such as rolling their head and shoulders, wiping their faces, or picking their nose, plus their facial expression changes whether they are responding to another survivor or are trying to de-stress after an intense fight with zombies. However, every survivor character share these animations without any variation. The zombies themselves also have various idle animations, but when it comes to movement, they all move exactly the same (which the developers say they done on purpose since they consider the zombies to be like feral animals). The zombies also lack any facial animations other than their mouths sometimes moving.
** Zoey has unique healing animations from ''Left 4 Dead'' while the other survivors share the same animations. When using a first aid kit, a survivor will wrap a gauze around their arm and then bend down to wrap gauze on their leg. When a survivors heals another survivor, they will make some patting motions from the face down and then wrap the gauze around the target's leg. In Zoey's case, when healing her self, she will bite off a piece of the gauze before wrapping it on her arm and leg and when she heals others, she reaches out to them from the chest down to wrap the gauze.

-->or (*hands on desk* Lie *thumb and index finger resting on chin as if thinking* like *[[GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger points directly at Larry]]* a dog!)

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' uses this trope during general play and minor cutscenes, the most egregious example being the way the party leader will look over their shoulder at an interjecting party member when they accept or complete a sidequest, every time, and every character ([[TeamPet save one]]) uses a near-identical animation skeleton for it. The same handful of gestures and minor facial expressions are also used extensively for the minor cutscenes, though the heavier, more dramatic scenes use full motion-capture and give the characters much more detailed, expressive faces.

* Ditto with the ''Franchise/GrandTheftAuto'' series starting with the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII the third game]] where civilians and the player alike make [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHMu9YGSvV4 exaggerated arm gestures]] during conversations which do not involve elaborate setpiece animations.

* The original ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' was pretty clever in it's use of stock motions, enhanced through emotion bubbles, but Covenant had Yuri put his hand on his hip ''every time he spoke''.

-->'''Alice:''' ''Fold-arms gesture'' It looks like there's a [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence foot-high]] wall in our path. We'll have to find a way around.
-->'''Bob:''' ''Hands-on-hips gesture'' Can't we just climb over it?
-->'''Alice:''' ''Hair-toss gesture'' What next? 'Alice, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality why don't we eat]]?' 'Alice, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou why is everything trying to kill us]]?' 'Alice, [[BottomlessBladder why don't we ever go to the toilet]]?' ''Fold-arms gesture'' You're full of it. Follow me!

-->'''Bob:''': ''Head-tilt gesture'' ...Those are tin cans. ''Pointing-finger gesture'' Are you sure you know what a fish is?

{{Visual Novel}}s tend to use this a lot, usually just with reusing static drawings of the characters instead of animations.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' had altogether too few of these, with often comic results -- particularly when a character spun around for lack of anything better to express their emotions with. This may be why ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' was the first FF game to have a reasonable selection of these (The lighthearted mood that makes the exaggerated movements not break the mood also plays a part).

* ''VideoGame/TheMovies'' is a movie studio simulation, but in fact can actually be used as a studio for Machinima. It puts the player in the seat of a cutscene director: You can actually write, direct and edit short cutscenes (or long ones if you have the patience) which can include many actors with a staggering array of backdrops, camera angles and costumes. The game has a very large assortment of possible character animations in each "scene", but most of the motions look extremely exaggerated or contrived, making it difficult to make anything which doesn't look like a satire of itself. Still, with the editing tools at your disposal, and a bit of talent it's quite possible to [[http://www.machinima.com/channel/view&id=2 actually make a movie that looks reasonably good]]. Some have won awards.

* ''VideoGame/StardewValley'' uses the same "jump back, arms splayed out above your head" gesture for almost any time a character is shocked or physically struck.

Animating {{Cut Scene}}s in a video game is not easy, mostly due to sheer volume. Even the shorter story-based games are longer than all but the most avant-garde of movies, plus players might need to see different ones depending on what they do in the game. It can be the equivalent of animating four ''Franchise/ToyStory''-length movies.

It involves small clips of gesture animation being predefined for all the characters. For example, you animate a FistPump, hair-toss and folded-arms gesture for Alice, and then a hands-on-hips, QuizzicalTilt and pointing-finger gesture for Bob. You use a few of them to put together a scene:

-->'''Alice:''' ''Fold-arms gesture'' It looks like there's a [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence foot-high]] wall over there in the corner. We'll have to find another route.
-->'''Bob:''' ''Head-tilt gesture'' Uh, can't we just climb over it?
-->'''Alice:''' ''Hair-toss gesture'' What next? 'Alice, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality why don't we eat]]?' 'Alice, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou why is everything trying to kill us]]?' 'Alice, [[BottomlessBladder why don't we ever go to the toilet]]?' ''Fold-arms gesture'' You're full of it. Let's go!

-->'''Bob:''': ''Hands-on-hips gesture'' ...Those are tin cans. ''Pointing-finger gesture'' Are you sure you know what a fish is?

If you need to save even more time, you can use the same animations for all characters instead of giving each one a certain set. So Alice folds her arms in one scene, and then Bob folds his arms in the same way in the next. Due to how computer animation works, it's relatively easy to "apply" an animation to different characters once you already have the motions created.

The point of all this is that once you've finished making the reusable animations, you can craft many solid, believable scenes with very little time and budget. Of course, it doesn't take long to realize that the sequences will look unnatural and stilted. The characters will have to express every Tropeular emotion known to man in only a few stock motions. Scenes will look repetitive in the extreme.

As motion capture becomes less expensive and game engines and animation software become more powerful (and game budgets increase), this trope seems to be almost dead. Nowadays it's more common to use stock gestures for only low-ticket, talky scenes which aren't particularly plot important -- {{Exposition Break}}s, [[HeKnowsAboutTimedHits player tutorials that break the fourth wall]], things like that -- and use full motion-capture or animating from scratch for everything else. If you have enough gestures however, particularly [[CharacterTics character-specific ones]], it can help establish personalities even without full animation.

{{Visual Novel}}s tend to use this a lot, due to the combination of a strong focus on dialogue and a lack of actual animation.

* Used for {{foreshadowing}} in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''. [[TheSpock Gale]] demonstrates a common habit of touching his forehead whenever he's thinking. The player can later infer that this is because [[spoiler:in his past life, he wore glasses.]]

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' Basically every emotional reaction is represented by ''jumping up and down''. There is even a scene in the first game where the two main-characters try to explain that the world is going to end and stuff by running around and jumping.

* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a considerable number of recycled animations for every character, but one of the must humorous ones is for Aya, who just ''fidgets in place'' while saying a line.

** The [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld sequel]] does as well, though it is avoided during major cutscenes, which use motion-capture.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'' converse with exaggerated stock guestures and nonsensical language.

Animating {{Cut Scene}}s in a video game is not easy, and much of this is due to sheer volume. Even the shorter story-based games are longer than all but the most avant-garde of movies, and that's just for starters -- depending on what the player does, they may see more cutscenes, or fewer cutscenes or different ones. It can be the equivalent of animating four ''Franchise/ToyStory''-length movies.

And there's another problem with animating video games -- technology. In the first decade or so of 3D gaming, in-engine cutscenes had to use extremely simple models, often with no moveable mouths or visible eyes. It took until about the year 2000 before motion capture technology (recording an actor's movements with sensors) began to be seriously used (and seriously affordable). And even this must be processed by hand in some cases, because the sets at mo-cap record time may have changed in-game since the mo-cap was recorded (or no sets were used at all), or because the characters can perform actions that the motion capture actors can't possibly replicate or have proportions that real-world acting can't translate to. It is much harder to translate mo-cap to a game with surreal or exaggerated styles like WaddlingHead or SuperDeformed, for instance, and so this trope is much more likely to show up those games.

Going Through the Motions is the corner-cut measure designed to avoid all this hurt and pain in the most commercially viable and time-saving way possible, thus allowing game developers to spend their time on more interesting and important pursuits such as writing, debugging, smoothing out gameplay and increasing the ThirdPersonSeductress' cup size.

Related to {{Machinima}}, it involves small clips of gesture animation being predefined for all the characters -- for instance, Bob might have a sarcastic {{facepalm}} gesture, while Alice might have a hand-on-hip gesture, a raise-gun gesture, a stretch gesture, a hair-toss gesture and a fold-arms gesture. These can then be strung together to make a coherent scene; something like:

-->'''Alice:''' ''Hand On Hip gesture.'' It looks to me that there's a [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence foot-high]] wall over there in the corner. ''Fold-arms gesture.'' We'll have to find another route.
-->'''Bob:''' ''Sarcastic facepalm gesture.'' Can't we just climb over it like normal human beings?
-->'''Alice:''' ''Hair-toss gesture.'' What next? 'Alice, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality why don't we eat]]?' 'Alice, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou why is everything trying to kill us]]?' 'Alice, [[BottomlessBladder why don't we ever go to the toilet]]?' ''Hand-on-hip gesture.'' You're full of it. ''Points-gun gesture.'' Let's go!

The practical upshot of this route is that a solid, believable scene can be patched together in no time at all for very little budget compared to the alternative.

Of course, it doesn't take long to realize that the sequences will look unnatural and stilted. The characters will have to express every Tropeular emotion known to man in only a few stock motions. Scenes will look repetitive in the extreme.

As motion capture becomes less expensive and game engines and animation software become more powerful (and as game budgets increase), the practice of Going Through the Motions for the whole game seems to be almost dead. Nowadays it's a lot more common to use stock gestures for only low-ticket, talky scenes which aren't particularly plot important -- {{Exposition Break}}s, [[HeKnowsAboutTimedHits player tutorials that break the fourth wall]], things like that -- and use full motion-capture or animating from scratch for everything else. If you have enough gestures however, particularly character-specific ones, it can help [[CharacterTics establish characters]] when mixed with fully animated cutscenes.

Not to be confused with stock sequences triggered by the player, as {{Victory Pose}}s, spell effects, etc. They're something different. For when entire ''scenes'' are reused, see StockFootage. An example of the KuleshovEffect.

* Every character in ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'' has this little "vanishing" animation they use ''every goddamn time'' you meet them, whether it is Cheshire Cat's fading out or the gnome's "twirl and shrink into nothing".

->''"You can almost see [the characters in Franchise/MassEffect] going over their stage directions in their heads: 'Hello Commander Shepard (wave hand), I heard you might show up today (nod head), how 'bout those freaky aliens, eh?' (shake fist, grr grr, slightly racist undercurrent)"''
-->-- '''Ben "[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]" Croshaw''', on Creator/BioWare and their abuse of this trope.

*** As mentioned in the page quote, there's also a generic "shake fist grr grr" motion used throughout the franchise that looks wrong no matter who is using it from Counselor Udina to a teenaged biotic.

* XtraNormal videos, at least the ones made on the website, either don't let characters talk and gesture at the same time and use stock gestures, or the creators are too lazy to bother fixing their creation. Either way, any gestures made will be made after a comment is made, looking incredibly awkward.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', if you are very observant you may notice there is some reuse of background characters actions in different scenes. One pair of girls can be seen to apparently admire each other's nail polish at least three times in the movie.

* ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'' unfortunately did not do this for non-major characters, causing a lot of [[UncannyValley unnatural looking]] conversations where [=NPCs=] stand completely stock still moving only their mouths.

** The Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog series, in general, averts these for cutscenes, with a few exceptions. One of them is Classic Sonic in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' and ''VideoGame/SonicForces'', which was a deliberate choice to make him look like a FishOutOfTemporalWater -- namely from a less technologically advanced era of games. Where everyone else moves fluidly and the other FunnyAnimal characters are animated from scratch, Classic Sonic does stock flips, backflips, short hops, hand-waves, running in place, etc., albeit adjusted such that he appears natural and not [[UncannyValley uncanny]].

* ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' has several of these looping animations (particularly noticeable in ''Tooie''). During cutscenes, Banjo will repeatedly put his hands on his hips, nod, put a hand to his chin, and repeat while Kazooie shakes her head in the background. This can get annoying quickly. However, the idle animations are actually fun to watch.

Not to be confused with stock sequences triggered by the player, as {{Victory Pose}}s, spell effects, etc. They're something different. For when entire ''scenes'' are reused, see StockFootage.

* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' averted this, surprisingly. Every cutscene is scripted, including the facial gestures and the characters talking. It was surprising for some to play the sequel and learn they had removed ''all motion'', going with select character portraits for the facial animation and stilled 3D shots for what used to be the cutscenes.