First motion-capture animation in a videogame

In order to incorporate fluid animation into the martial-arts game Karateka (Broderbund, 1984), developer Jordan Mechner decided to film his karate instructor and trace over the motion-picture footage in a bid to copy the man's movement to his Apple II computer. This technique, called rotoscoping, was well-established in film and animation but it created a realistically moving character in a combat sports game for the first time. Mechner, who began working on the technique in 1982, used it again in the hit platformer Prince of Persia (Broderbund, 1989).