Animation -Jumps methods?

[Ronnie42]

So I'm ok at animating fists, generally most things manually but is there any techniques to make Jump animations look right?, I've heard it can be difficult by others too. I know about speed can help to a degree. Normally I create the poses so I can reuse them for animations then repeat them based on the pattern that I want but the jumping animation never seem's to look right.

I've been considering investing at a later date but for now I'm mainly focusing on manual animating my rigs since I hear Kinect 2.0 is good for those on a budget.

Edit: Looking into it further, might be best for me to look into something related to video reference that I can use within Blender.

[The Renderer]

Never did one but if I had to, I'd use video reference (as you already mentioned) and recreate that - frame by frame if necessary - or maybe even just find a motion captured jump animation.

[Ronnie42]

Originally posted by The Renderer:

Never did one but if I had to, I'd use video reference (as you already mentioned) and recreate that - frame by frame if necessary - or maybe even just find a motion captured jump animation.

I tend to avoid pre-made stuff, mainly trying to do this to learn, it's part of the reason why I'm considering making my own with Kinect for animation.

Anyway yep the video reference seems like the way to go, will have to have eventually try it since need to improve my animations in general.

[Salt_Extractor]

Fast animations dont have to be perfect, they just need to make sense physicaly.
Just make the model have an obvius prep for the jump(lowering its position to get maximum jump efficiency, changing facial expression and moving its arms in somwhat illogical sense). After that the jump itself will be obvius and easy, landing might not tough depending on how you want it to land.

And mid air you just need make the body seem like its trying to maintain balance with its arm and leg movment.
Game designers like to use 3 seperate animations for the jump "sequance".
1. Jump
2. Falling
3. Landing (I saw some call it stupid things like "areal reset" and some other crap)

But yea, if you need a lot of jumping you would use somthin like that.

[Ronnie42]

Originally posted by ihavenowingss:

Fast animations dont have to be perfect, they just need to make sense physicaly.
Just make the model have an obvius prep for the jump(lowering its position to get maximum jump efficiency, changing facial expression and moving its arms in somwhat illogical sense). After that the jump itself will be obvius and easy, landing might not tough depending on how you want it to land.

And mid air you just need make the body seem like its trying to maintain balance with its arm and leg movment.
Game designers like to use 3 seperate animations for the jump "sequance".
1. Jump
2. Falling
3. Landing (I saw some call it stupid things like "areal reset" and some other crap)

But yea, if you need a lot of jumping you would use somthin like that.

I kind of get what you mean. Already done the jump animations before but I was mainly trying to figure out a way to make improve my animations since they weren't great since was mainly guessing.

Judging by the previous comments I think video referencing might be the best solution so far since it mean's I can get a better idea of how to make the jump look right in parts then I can throw it into Blendspace in UE4 later for the full jump.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

This is more of a creative suggestion, but in addition to referencing footage of people actually jumping, if your use-case calls for it you may also want to look at some creatively interpreted jump animations. By that, I mean you can also observe characters jumping in CG films and video games and observe any sort of exaggerated motions that help sell the movement.

For instance, Luigi paddles his feet in the air and both Batman and Spiderman sometimes make somewhat-triangle poses that imply rigid, combat form. A lot of Pixar characters exert a lot of energy while following the 12 Principles of Animation and will really use their upper body and arms to lead into a jump, which also can help.

Most CG animated jumps are much longer than real jumps giving a slight sense of weighlessness that allows more time for the audience to really take in the movement. This is often seen in video games too as most characters stay in the air twice or even three-times as long as they might in the real world with our gravity.

Again, this might not apply to your scenario at all. If you are going for realism, you definitely will want to focus on copying real video actors jumping and avoid giving your airtime any sort of delay. The weight of your characters will make them fall very quickly and the most you can do to captivate fluid motion might come from copying acrobatic limb motion.

[Salt_Extractor]

Originally posted by Ronnie42:

throw it into Blendspace in UE4 later for the full jump.

Im pretty sure one of the default skeletons in UE4 has a fully made jumping animation

[Ronnie42]

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

This is more of a creative suggestion, but in addition to referencing footage of people actually jumping, if your use-case calls for it you may also want to look at some creatively interpreted jump animations. By that, I mean you can also observe characters jumping in CG films and video games and observe any sort of exaggerated motions that help sell the movement.

For instance, Luigi paddles his feet in the air and both Batman and Spiderman sometimes make somewhat-triangle poses that imply rigid, combat form. A lot of Pixar characters exert a lot of energy while following the 12 Principles of Animation and will really use their upper body and arms to lead into a jump, which also can help.

Most CG animated jumps are much longer than real jumps giving a slight sense of weighlessness that allows more time for the audience to really take in the movement. This is often seen in video games too as most characters stay in the air twice or even three-times as long as they might in the real world with our gravity.

Again, this might not apply to your scenario at all. If you are going for realism, you definitely will want to focus on copying real video actors jumping and avoid giving your airtime any sort of delay. The weight of your characters will make them fall very quickly and the most you can do to captivate fluid motion might come from copying acrobatic limb motion.

I think I get what you mean, as long as I'm doing manual frame by frame animation I doubt my animating will ever be perfect but yes it really depends on what I'm doing.

It's really something I'm going to think about since I've got 2 projects that I'm working.
Sonic style in UE4, which seems to stay longer in the air like you said, then there's my 'spirtual successor' to classic Re2/3 style games which would require more careful animating when I get around to it.