I myself am concerned about what Bethesda have done in previous games for their character animations. This may not come as a big issue to some players, but for others it's quite game breaking and ruins immersion in the latest Bethesda releases.

What exactly am I referring to?
- Lack of (what looks like) motion capture for humanoid characters
- Lack of animations for any type of Forward+Sidestep movement

I played Morrowind to death, I had that game literally 3 times over on my Computer, my Xbox, and then again as the GotY on my Xbox. Everything in that game was amazing for its time. A few years down the track and out comes Oblivion and the excitement I had was incredible, the game was amazing even on my not so competent computer, but this is where I started to notice something wrong. Most games had moved on significantly and were progressing in every which way in Graphics, Sound, Gameplay and Animation, but here we were lacking one. At the time however, I was happy enough with the game to let it pass and got on with the stuff I enjoyed most.

Then comes Fallout 3, not only another exciting Bethesda title but built on a foundation that rocked my world when I was younger, Fallout! Not long after its announcement/release though, I started to see things that had not progressed from the previous games... The character animations, they hadn't changed. You cannot see any significant differences between the Morrowind and Fallout character animations. The choppy running/walking, the sliding side stepping, the non-existent forward+sidestep (W+A/D)... I tore my hair out...

This needs to stop. Spend some cash Bethesda please, do some simple motion capture for humanoids. Hell! Just make a simple forward + sidestep animation and I'll be happy not to see my character drift sideways while he attempts to run forward. There is no excuse for still having these types of animations 9 years later.

Part of me will die inside if I see that sliding forward run one more time...

I agree completely, and I think the developers do too. They've apparently put a lot of work into this, and it hasn't been confirmed but I believe some motion capture is in as well.

I'm hoping that they are using motion capture this time around. With both New Vegas and Fallout 3 selling so well they should be able to afford it.

It will not be the thing that makes up whether the game is good or not, but I agree that characters have always looked really awkward when they walk, and that they lack a lot of extra animation. I'm also missing some better animation for things like jumping and walking on stairs, but somehow, I think it's been improved for this game already. Or at least I hope so..

I can confirm that Ob were hand keyed and not mocap.

From what I gather the reason why forward +sidestep doesn't really exist in OB is actually not the animations themselves, its to do with gamebryo and the animation system.

Anyway that's a non issue now. Beth have a new engine. And Todd said in an interview some time ago they spent a lot of time on that and the animation system. So at least something in this regard has been addressed.

edit: oh and i heard Bethesda has a mocap studio as of a few years ago, but that might be BS, I don't have a direct source that confirms something like that.

Yeah, I agree with your first statement. The games are still good, great even. But as I stated in my first few lines, it really kills immersion for a lot of players like myself.

Animations are a hugely important factor for me as well; no matter how good a game looks, if it doesn't move equally well, I can barely stand to play it. I couldn't play Morrowind in 3rd person, because the character anims were unbearable. I do like Oblivion's, though - the movements have a good sense of "weight" and generally don't make characters look silly.

So if Skyrim's anims have improved upon Oblivion's at all, I'll be pretty content. I believe motion capture is a fair possibility this time, too (IIRC, Bethesda were hiring animators with motion capture experience at some point). Either way, I hope we see a video sooner rather than later.

Except that Oblivion had no sixual dimorphism in the movement anims, it was just an androgynous meet-halfway thing that made male characters look like they had overly swaying hips and made female chars look like they had a masculine arm swing.

Splitting the movement anims returned in FO3, thankfully.

it did?
tbh I never saw a male or female version of the locomotion animations, I just had a very brief look in the folders and nothing jumped at me to suggest this.

In any case the vast majority are shared anims, that I do know.