first time jump anim :D

[Gabriel Askew]

Cool. Nice take on the ole boucing ball routine and good timing. The only critique I can give is if you are going to do a bunch of animations with him as you said I would add some arms. It would give it another level of complexity and make it more interesting to watch.

[thehive]

everything is flowing nicely but on the that last hop before the leap needs more energy build up
looks like jus starts to fly into the air, jus have him prepare before the leap. hope that helps cheers

[jakiloblanco]

I hear ya Hive! thanks!

I think I an gonna just add arms to the guy, kinda like Mike from Monster's inc... maybe even add a face to him... for lipsync and stuff :D

Thanks!!

edit:heh heh... I just remembered how much I struggled making the super simple ball and legs rig... now that I gave him arms, I have no idea how to make it work... but you said it, Gabriel, its gonna be more complex:D wish me luck..(please)

:buttrock:

[pollywoggles]

This is really good!

The only suggestion I have is with the arc as he's leaping. The biggest thing is when he's going down. It is out of the arc, it looks like hits an invisible barrior and slides down it -- he's in the air almost at the top of the arc, then on the next key he's half way down (almost straight down), and on the final key he's in a squash position. I'd take a few frames off the top of the arc (which seems pretty even, and put them on the descent -- to make the arc on the descent side look more like how it looks at rise) also, he goes from being in the air, to a full squash -- I think a contact frame inbetween those two would look pretty cool.

[Gabriel Askew]

For a segmented character like this, the arms should be easy to set up. Just adjust the pivot points of the arm objects to where the joint would naturally be and link em. This will work fine if you be doing primarily forward kinematic animation on the arms. Its fun to animate simple arm setups like this, because you don't have to worry about IK. If you plan to have the character rest his hand on something, though, you can set up an arm that switches between forward and inverse kinematics. This is more complex but certainly do-able. If you want I can show you a simple set up for that.

[jakiloblanco]

Here's an update, I changed the arc, and gave him a bit more launching power... thanks for that guys!

www.jacquesdaigle.com/jump2.mov

Gabriel, I'm in the process of rigging arms on him right now... I'm aware of forward and inverse kinematics... but that's about all I know... the names!! This guy's rigged with rigging101's revers foot thing...

The one thing I'm scared of is making the hands workable.. mainly the fingers... I have a feeling it's a little more work than setting up legs :D But thanks alot for the offer, I'll see where the rigging is gonna take me, and if i have crazy problems... I'll ask away!!

Thanks guys!

[pollywoggles]

Hey jakiloblanco!

That jump is really going along nicely. Good work here.

Here is my suggestion about the arc on the jump. For description purposes, if I refer to the first frame as the last frame that he's in contact with the ground (the frame just before he is first in the air)...

it appears that the spacing is pretty much even between:

the first through the fifth frame (ascending);
then even again from the fifth through the tenth frame (the frames that round the top of the arc);
even again between the tenth and forteenth frame (falling).
I think for the first group (1), you could eliminate at least the second frame -- this will help show that rapid acceleration as he's first jumping into the air. For the second group (top of the arc), I'd take out that linear spacing and show more ease-in, then ease-out. And for the third group, I'd remove the frame before contact, to show more acceration before he smacks the ground. I think also they keys between (what is currently) 11 and 14 frames could still use a little more arcing.

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