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Performance-capture actors do far more than read dialogue, but they do not physically walk through a finished digital open world. They perform directed scenes with other actors, record dialogue alongside movement when the production calls for it, and work with safe stand-ins for vehicles, rooms and props on a capture stage. Separate sessions provide locomotion, combat, crafting, climbing, animal actions and other reusable world activity. Stunt performers and specialists may supply difficult physical actions. Afterward, editors, technical teams and animators process the recordings and build them into the playable character. The result is an acting performance that becomes source material for a collaborative animation pipeline, not an untouched one-to-one transfer of every movement.
What does “performance capture” mean in a game?
The label describes which parts of a performance are recorded, and studios do not use it identically. Ubisoft describes motion capture chiefly as recording body movement, while performance capture adds facial and voice performance. CD PROJEKT RED’s Motion Capture Producer Paulina Lendzion said in a June 9, 2026 transcript: “For performance capture, we are recording voice at the same time as we are recording the animation.” That describes a particular production setup, not a rule that every session records every channel together.
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| Production option | What is recorded | Typical purpose | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Movement-only capture | Body movement, often with reference video | Locomotion, combat, climbing or other reusable actions | That the performer supplied dialogue or facial acting |
| Performance capture | Body, facial and voice performance in a coordinated shoot | Dialogue scenes and character acting | That every stunt or gameplay animation came from the same actor |
| Specialist or stunt capture | Actions requiring unusual strength, timing or technical skill | Combat prototypes, athletic movement, vehicles or hazardous-looking action represented safely | That the principal voice or facial performer did the action |
| Artist-finished animation | Edited and refined data integrated with the game | Final cinematic and playable character animation | That the on-screen result is raw, unedited acting |
Do actors just record the voice?
No. In a performance-capture shoot, an actor’s timing, posture, gesture, facial expression and voice can be recorded as one coordinated performance. Tony Lomonaco, Ubisoft Toronto’s Performance Capture Director, summarized that studio’s approach in a December 18, 2019 interview: “At Ubisoft, we capture more than just motion – we capture a full performance.”
That does not make every recording session a dialogue scene. CD PROJEKT RED distinguishes performance-capture sessions from movement-only shoots; the latter do not require the same quiet audio setup because their purpose is body animation rather than spoken lines. A production can therefore combine a voiced dramatic scene with separately recorded movement libraries, even for the same character.
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Do actors act out the whole open world?
No. An actor plays assigned scenes or actions, not a continuous tour through the finished map. The production divides work into at least three broad requests: cinematic scenes, gameplay animation and open-world animation. A cinematic is a directed dramatic exchange. Gameplay animation supplies repeatable actions such as attacks, locomotion or reactions. Open-world animation gives residents and protagonists activities that make the environment feel inhabited, such as fishing or blacksmithing.
CD PROJEKT RED’s capture producer describes planning these categories with animation, cinematic-design and gameplay departments. Teams may test combat ideas early, then book performers months ahead for larger shoots. The same project can ask for an emotionally specific conversation on one day and a catalogue of practical movements on another. The finished game combines those sources with keyframe animation, procedural systems and transitions so the character can respond to player input.
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Planning begins with the animation need, not with an actor wandering onto a stage. A plausible production sequence looks like this, although individual studios organize departments and sessions differently.
- Define the request. A cinematic, gameplay move or open-world activity is specified, including timing, interaction and the intended in-game context.
- Choose the performers. Casting considers dialogue and dramatic ability for scenes, then recruits stunt performers or specialist athletes when the movement requires skills the principal cast does not have.
- Design safe physical references. The crew builds or positions stable stand-ins for walls, seats, vehicle interiors, tools and other contact points. They must be dimensionally useful without blocking the cameras’ view of tracking markers.
- Rehearse the blocking. Actors learn where to stand, when to move and how to work with scene partners. Combat prototypes and unusual props may be tested before the main recording.
- Capture the planned takes. The crew records the selected channels—body, face, voice and reference video as required—rather than assuming every take needs the same equipment or audio conditions.
CD PROJEKT RED’s account stresses advance scheduling for some work and collaboration among animation, cinematic and gameplay teams. That coordination is why a seemingly simple action, such as climbing or using a tool, can require decisions about props, hand contact, camera visibility and how the move will transition into player-controlled animation.
What is the stage like?
The stage is a tracked volume, not the digital landscape itself. Cameras observe performers in a defined space while the crew records their positions and movements. The physical set may be sparse, but it is not imaginary in every practical sense: actors need reliable surfaces, heights and contact points for believable timing.
CD PROJEKT RED has described a stage with no green screen. Its examples include a constructed tank interior and a carriage rig that could be shaken. Those objects are safe, camera-friendly approximations of the spaces represented in the game. They do not mean the actors filmed inside a finished virtual city or wilderness.
Dimensions matter because a hand placed on a rail, a seated conversation or a person climbing into a vehicle must match the animation’s intended scale. The stage can reproduce the geometry needed for those relationships while leaving the final scenery to the game engine and art team.
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How do actors perform scenes that take place in invented locations?
They use physical references, direction and imagination. Roger Clark, who performed Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, said the capture-stage sets had dimensional accuracy and that animators helped performers understand what the environments would become. He also described moving between scenes set in very different in-game climates during a single stage day.
Clark’s account shows why this is still acting. He worked on Arthur’s dialect and physicality, listened to scene partners and responded to direction, while the landscape was supplied later by artists and the engine. He described the process as requiring “a lot of teamwork and understanding and imagination and attention to detail.” His experience supports the actor-centered explanation of the stage; it does not establish that he performed every line, stunt or background action in the finished game.
Does the principal actor do the stunts?
Sometimes, when the action is appropriate and safely within that performer’s ability, but a starring or voice credit is not proof that one person supplied every physical performance. Productions hire stunt performers and specialist athletes for actions that demand particular training, speed, strength or technical control.
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CD PROJEKT RED has offered a concrete example from Cyberpunk 2077: three actors performed early recordings for Jackie. The studio said inconsistent movement led it to prefer one performer where practical. That illustrates a production preference for continuity, not a universal casting rule and not evidence that a single actor always performs all channels.
Animal movement, combat, climbing and other specialized actions can likewise be recorded by people selected for those skills. The dramatic cast may still provide the character’s dialogue, facial acting and ordinary physicality, while specialists contribute the actions that make the game responsive and credible.
What happens during the take?
For a dramatic scene, actors receive direction about intention, timing, relationships and the physical geography of the stand-in set. They may perform several takes while the crew checks tracking, audio, facial data and contact points. Dialogue is recorded with movement when the session is designed as performance capture; a movement-only session concentrates on repeatable physical actions.
For gameplay or open-world work, the performer may repeat a short action many times with controlled variations: a walk, turn, stumble, attack, tool use or environmental interaction. The objective is not to create one linear performance but to give animators usable material that can be edited into loops, transitions and context-specific reactions.
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Reference cameras and audio help the team understand what happened on stage. Ubisoft Toronto’s Tony Lomonaco reported that its 2019 performance-capture operation generated more than one terabyte of capture-related data per week, including mocap, reference-camera, head-mounted-camera and audio data. That historical figure describes that studio at that time, not a current industry average.
What happens after actors finish filming?
Capture is source material. Editors and technical artists synchronize recordings, solve tracked movement, process facial information and prepare the data for animation. Animators then clean timing, adjust contacts, create transitions and fit the performance to the game’s rig, camera and player systems.
Rockstar North’s production account for Grand Theft Auto IV listed rehearsals, capture, solving, motion editing, facial animation, in-game integration and audio as separate stages. The account, published in 2008, illustrates the distinction between recording and delivery; it should not be read as a specification for modern equipment.
Small details often need artistic correction. CD PROJEKT RED has discussed cases in which animators adjusted hand or finger performance after capture. A correction does not mean the acting was discarded. It means the recorded performance must meet gameplay constraints, avoid intersections, match a prop or communicate clearly from the final camera angle.
Editors can also combine takes, shorten pauses, retime a gesture or select a different facial moment. The game’s animation system may blend the result with other motions when a player changes direction, interrupts an action or triggers a contextual interaction. What appears on screen is therefore a collaboration among performers, directors, capture technicians, editors, animators, designers, programmers and audio teams.
What do the major examples show?
Red Dead Redemption 2: acting for a world that is added later
Roger Clark’s firsthand description is the clearest actor-centered account in this group. The stage reproduced required dimensions, while animators helped performers imagine the eventual surroundings. It demonstrates how an actor can deliver a detailed dramatic performance without physically entering the final digital environment.
Cyberpunk 2077: a planned mixture of scene, gameplay and world activity
CD PROJEKT RED provides unusually specific examples of planning props, movement and performer choice. Its teams discussed combat prototypes, blacksmithing, fishing, climbing and animal movement alongside cinematic work. Those examples show the range of capture requests in an open-world production, but the studio’s particular workflow should not be generalized to every developer.
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Grand Theft Auto IV: capture is one step in a longer pipeline
Rockstar North’s 2008 account explicitly separated gameplay and cutscene animation and described the work that followed the mocap shoot. It is useful historical evidence for the production distinction, not a claim about today’s camera counts, software or staffing.
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Published figures vary by studio and project, so they need their original qualifications.
- CD PROJEKT RED Motion Capture Lead Tomasz Kowalczyk reported 311 shooting days for Cyberpunk 2077 in a June 2026 retrospective. That is a project total, not the number of days any one actor worked.
- Kowalczyk described a setup using 74 cameras and a capture volume of approximately 50 by 7 meters. Those are dimensions and equipment for that studio’s setup, not an industry standard.
- Ubisoft Toronto reported more than one terabyte of capture-related data per week in 2019. The figure included several data sources and is historical rather than a current average.
Large totals include many performers, departments and types of recording. They should not be converted into a claim about how much of an open world was “acted” by one cast member.
Are actors actually inside the game world?
No. They are inside a real capture volume with props or structural stand-ins. The digital world is reconstructed later from design data, animation and rendering. Actors can receive dimensional references and direction about the imagined setting, but the final weather, architecture, crowds, lighting and camera are created by the game’s production teams.
This separation also explains why a performer can switch between radically different fictional locations during one day. The stage needs to support the physical relationships; it does not need to become each finished biome or city district.
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What should a player infer from a performance-capture credit?
The credit indicates an important contribution, not exclusive authorship of every visible action. A credited actor may have supplied voice, face and body performance for narrative scenes, while another performer handled stunts and a broader animation team built gameplay loops and transitions.
Conversely, a movement-only contributor may never appear in the dialogue credits even though their physical work shapes how the character runs, fights or interacts with the world. Open-world characters are assembled from many recorded and authored pieces, selected for consistency, safety and playability.
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Why the distinction matters to players
Understanding the pipeline avoids two opposite misconceptions. Performance capture is not merely voice acting recorded in a room, because body timing, facial behavior and scene partnership can be captured together. It is also not a magical direct transfer in which an actor’s complete day becomes a finished playable character. The stage performance is interpreted, edited and integrated by a much larger production.
That is why a quiet movement session, a dialogue-heavy cinematic and a stunt specialist’s action can all belong to the same character. They solve different animation problems and are combined only after the recordings leave the stage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why might a capture session record movement but no dialogue?
Movement-only sessions are built to supply body animation such as locomotion, combat or environmental actions. CD PROJEKT RED says those shoots do not require the same quiet audio setup as performance-capture sessions, where voice is recorded with animation.
Are performance-capture stages made from green screen?
Not necessarily. CD PROJEKT RED has described a stage without green screen, using practical stand-ins such as a tank interior and a carriage rig so performers can work against stable, correctly scaled contact points.
Can animators change an actor’s captured hand or facial movement?
Yes. Captured data is edited and refined before integration. CD PROJEKT RED has described animators adjusting hand or finger performance, while production accounts also separate solving, motion editing, facial animation and in-game integration.
What does a large shooting-day total actually count?
A project total includes many sessions, performers and types of work across the production. CD PROJEKT RED’s 311-day figure for Cyberpunk 2077 is not an individual actor’s schedule and cannot be used to estimate how long any one performer worked.
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