Animating a jump for a video game?

#1

How would one go about this? If this was for a movie, I would simply animate the jump like any other action. However, since this is for a video game I can’t do that. Technically speaking, the animation on a game character is just a visual representation of what he’s doing at the time. In a jump, the character physicaly lifts off the ground, the programmers would be doing this part. Yet how would I make it look good. Do I have him go through the jumping motions without leaving the ground? do I make him actually do a jump, (and when in game he will just be physically jumping resulting in a higher jump than I animated) then there’s the issue of airtime, and landing. If you jump in place vs jumping onto something. Both have a different amount of airtime. The could be drastically seen if you jump off of something very large.

Also, I we don’t know how high we want him to jump at the moment.

#2

Typically a jump for a game will consist of several animations. Don’t move the character up much higher than the default standing Idle pose. Usually the programmers and game designers will set the height of the jump in code.

Jump - This is a short squat and jump motion. The start pose is generic enough to be used from the standing Idle or a running animation. The end pose is the JumpIdle animation.

JumpIdle - This is a looping animation of the character in the “air.” Keep one foot is close to the ground plane to give an indication of what you can jump over. If both feet were well above the ground plane, in the game it would look like you can jump over certain obstacles, but the collision is happening from the scene origin.

JumpLand - This is the landing animation, start from the JumpIdle pose. This one has a slightly longer dip and recover.

JumpLandRun - This is a very fast second landing animation that also starts from the JumpIdle. There is a fast dip and the end pose is the first frame of the run animation. I use 2 different landing animations because you’ll get a lot of foot sliding if you try to play JumpLand while moving.

Hope this helps.

#3

Thank you. That helped a lot! It might be a bit hard to animate a jump without him really leaving the ground. If I want his legs bent, I would have to make him crouch, then go up to standing height, then bring his hips back down to crouch level so it looks like he’s in the air with his legs bent. Does that sound about right?

#4

Usually I animate the jump with him leaving the ground. Then I use a layer to keep him near the ground. It comes out more natural that way.

Finally I take the pose at the apex and create the JumpIdle animation from that.

#5

I don’t know much about layers, but I bet I’ll get the same effect by using his main mover to keep him at the ground.

Thanks

#6

This is really interesting stuff.
I have been looking for detailed resources on creating animation sets for games animations.

Can you suggest any material that covers more of the generally used practices for creating sequences for the sets ?
I am currently polishing my showreel, hoping to submit it to games studios soon. But I havent produced any sequences as detailed in the above Jump post. All my character action shots are of the parcor/ kungfu / with basic narrative etc.
Would it be necessary to include a sequence such as the Jump with no lift ?

Sorry i didnt mean to turn post into " what shall i put in my showreel …?"
I am really more interested in finding more detailed breakdowns of all the generic actions.
Hope this makes sense

Thanks

#7

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