“Don’t just stand there, do something!” Animating background actors calls for both creativity and restraint. Background actors shouldn’t be static, but their animations also shouldn’t distract from the main action.

Here’s a short list of animations that work well for background actors…

-talk_neutral

-talk_neutral_arms_crossed_loop

-talk_neutral_think_loop

-text_loop

-listen_phone

-talk_phone_neutral_loop

-idle_arms_crossed

-listen

-listen_gossip

-idle_smoking

-idle_shift_weight

Don’t feel that you have to limit yourself to this list of animations though. Use any that you’d like, but just use your best judgment when animating background characters!