MOTION ANIMATION ACADEMY 2010

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Jumping and landing in 3D space

Character Rig Introduction

During these lessons we will see 2 different character rigs.

Simple guy Mani

Both character rigs where created by Jermery Cantor.

I will be demonstrating the first few lessons using the Simple guy rig, and you will be following along with the
Mani rig. Both rigs are very similar but the Mani rig actually has more options. But first let me walk you through a
few of the simple guy options.
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When you first open the Simple Guy and the Mani rigs a pop up Gui will come on screen that will look like this.

Simple guy Mani

Both of these Gui’s are very helpful to these character rigs. They allow us to easily make selections of controllers,
set keys on controllers, toggle visibility of certain body parts and selections, make switches to different control
systems, show certain windows in Maya and allow you to access certain invisible controllers.

For the most part these Gui pop

up boxes are very self-explanatory.
For example if you click here in the
simple guy toolbox you will select
the Right arm should controller.

On the mani toolbox you would select

here.
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If you want to key all controllers on the simple guy rig you would
push here.

On mani it would be here.

Now before you begin animating with the mani rig Open the file and take a look at the options in the toolbox and
try to become familiar with some of the options. Like the visibility drop down menu to hide body parts during
animation so you can focus on just a smaller part of the animation.

So during the upcoming lessons I will explain certain parts of these rigs but do try to look around the rig control-
lers and toolboxes to better familiarize yourself to the rig.
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Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• Create an animation of a character jumping and landing in 3D space.
• Explain the dynamics of jumping.

Description

Students study video references to better understand what is involved in the complex motion of jumping off the
ground.

Learning Outcomes

Students will understand the dynamics of jumping. Students will also create a character animation with a charac-
ter moving through 3D space.

Introduction

The Jump! In this lesson, you build on all of the past lessons. The jump uses the weight theory from the bouncing
ball, the walk-cycle principles of moving a character by working many different parts separately to create a more
complex movement, follow through in a character’s body, and a workflow that best supports the easiest, most
creative outlet to animate a character.

Take a look at 01_Jump_reference.mov. Check out all of the air achieved in this massive jump (awesomeness).

place video
here

Second, this video reference will be key for us to use when animating this jump. It will provide lots of reference
to use for our basic animation. You can view the jump reference to see key poses and positions. The other great
thing about video reference is that you can get the base timing for all your movements without guessing. There is
a frame counter in the top left corner of the images and video. Again, the reference is just for getting started. As
you go along, you will add exaggeration to the poses and timing as needed.
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Pose Picture Description
1 Starting Position (Preparation):
Character standing still, preparing
for the jump.

2 First Step (Preparation): Character

moving forward to build energy to
jump into the air.

3 Anticipation of jump (Initiation):

The squat to help in jumping higher.

4 Extension (Exertion/Main Action):

The legs explode upwards and the
character is almost off the ground.
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Pose Picture Description
5 Apex of Jump (Exertion/Main
Action): The highest point of the
jump.

6 Anticipation of Landing (Exertion/

Main Action): Moving down now
and stretching the legs out in an-
ticipation of the landing.

7 Landing (Follow Through): Accept-

ing the weight of the jump.

8 Settle (Transition): Character stand-

ing back up into a more natural
position after the motion.
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It is time to get started. You can see from the frame counter that you will be using a total of 120 frames. Again,
you will animate at 30 frames per second. For the initial type of workflow for a jump animation, you use a pose to
pose workflow and then switch to a straight-ahead workflow to finish. Set the animation settings to work in pose
to pose.
• Click Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences. In the window that displays, click Animation on the
left side and match the settings shown in the following image.

Under Tangents:
• Select > Weighted tangents.
• For Default In Tangent, select Flat.
• For Default Out Tangent, select Stepped.
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These settings enable you to block in poses and not worry about the in-between motion early on, which can be
distracting. Each key will not interpolate motion to the next key, just snap or pop there. You also take advantage
of the rig that is being used. When you open the scene, this toolbox should display.

This is a nice addition to this rig in particular. You may not see anything like this on other free rigs. This type of
toolbox it is quite useful. Notice the two buttons and two drop-down lists in the highlighted sections.
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From left to right are:
• Button 1: Keyframe all channels on selected objects
• Button 2: Key all channels on all animation controllers.
• Drop-down list In and Out are similar to the animation settings set before. Set In to Flat. Set Out to
Stepped. This enables you to make sure all curves are the same as you go through the lesson and set
keys.

One last thing, you will notice a camera called Main_CAM in the scene. This camera is your animation/render
camera to animate to. All of your poses need to look correct from this camera.

Get started with the first pose. Using Autodesk® Maya® software, you try to match this pose with our character
from the image or video.
• Go through all the controllers and pose the character to match frame 1 and press KEY ALL.
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In the viewports you can use the perspective, side, or top camera to help with this posing. The pose you build
must look correct from the Main_CAM in the end. You may want to set up your screen in a two camera setup so
you can always have the Main_CAM up.
• To do, so hold down the RMB and select a different screen setup of your choice.
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• Go to frame 46. Add the second pose and press KEY ALL.

• Go to frame 64. Add the third pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 75. Add the fourth pose and KEY ALL.

• Go to frame 83. Add the fifth pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 91. Add the sixth pose and press KEY ALL.

• Go to frame 98. Add the seventh pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 120. Add the final pose and press KEY ALL.
• Playblast your scene. It should resemble 02_Pose_Blocked_In.qt.

place video
here

You can see what the animation looks like with stepped tangents; kind of like a slide show. The beauty of using a
pose-to-pose approach is that you can get a good sense of what your motion is going to look like without having
to make a lot of changes. If you need to make changes, you only have eight poses to make changes to. Eventually,
you can have a key on every frame, and at that point it is very hard to clean up and translate the curves and keys.
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Once you are satisfied with all of your original poses, add another round of poses to better fine-tune your
animation. This will enable you to see the animation further refined, without adding a lot of work.

• Go to frame 23. Add the first in-between pose and press Key All.
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• Go to frame 55. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.

• Go to frame 70. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 79. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.

• Go to frame 87. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 94. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.
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• Go to frame 109. Add the first in-between pose and press KEY ALL.

• Playblast the scene. It should resemble 03_Pose_Second_Pass_Blocked_In.qt. Or look at last two videos
side by side in 04_Blocked_Poses_SBS.mov. As you can see, you get a better sense of motion with this
added pose pass.

place video place video

here here
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At this point, you have two options: you can either do a third blocked pass on in-betweens of key poses you have
now, or you can begin using the curves and changing animation. Go ahead and change the curves and begin
working on how the character gets from one pose to the next.
• In the toolbox for the character, click Pick All. This selects all the controllers.

You see all the key ticks (red lines) in the timeline.

• In the timeline, hold the SHIFT button and MMB and drag the timeline to select all the key ticks. The
timeline turns red to tell you that you have selected the keys.
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• Hold down the RMB again on the timeline and click Tangents > Linear.

This makes all the curves linear.

• Playblast your scene. It should resemble 05_Linear_01.qt.

place video
here

Your character is now moving through space and in-between keys, but it looks really bad. View LinearCompare.
mov to see the animation and real video side by side.

Review the big points to fix:

1. In the animation shown, you see that the left arm is flipping out between frames 98 – 109. This is because
of the curves in the Graph Editor. Take a look and fix it. Select the Shoulder_lf controller. The Graph Edi-
tor should resemble the following image:
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You see the Rotate channels moving up and coming back together again at the end. This is enables large jumps
in the curves. You can actually flip an arm two or three times but have a pose that looks correct. However, when
your 3D software interpolates the curve, you will get a crazy flip-out or breakage of the rig. This is a drawback to
the pose-to-pose technique, but once you learn how to fix it, it is not too bad.

You need to repose the arms in the work view to more closely match the curves at the end of the animation.

Select the Shoulder_lf controller. In the Channel box, zero out the Rotate channels and repose the arm one axis at
a time. This should fix it. You can now see the curve with the fix.
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2. From frame 1 to 23, you slowly move forward in the video reference with slow-out to second pose with
the cog. But with all the linear curves, the body is moving at a constant speed. You need to fix these
curves by hand. In this image, you see the first two keys in the Graph Editor of the cog with the Translate
Z channel.
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This image shows time fixed.

3. The left foot around frame 35 needs to be translated up for the step forward and the foot needs to be
repositioned to match the movement, similar to what you learned from the walk cycle.
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4. You will see from the video reference that the left leg needs to be fully out-stretched by frame 39, not
frame 46.

5. The left foot needs to come down very quickly after frame 46 like in the walk cycle. It is taking 9 frames
to flatten out. Make it only 5 to 7 frames. Just flatten the foot on frame 50 and key the foot.

6. The right foot does not come off the ground until frame 51 in the video reference. Fix it in the animation
by having the foot roll onto the toe of the character until frame 51, and then translate to the next step.

7. From the video reference, you will see that the waist/cog does not begin to lower until about frame
59, but the animation lowers it after frame 55. Also with the linear curves the takeoff from the lowest
position is very abrupt and needs to be smoothed out. Do not move the cog down until frame 59.
Just set a key in the cog on frame 59 not moving down. Fix the curves with slow-in and slow-out for
anticipation of jump and the building of energy to jump.

8. Around frame 89 the legs need to be straightened out as if they are stretching for the ground.
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9. The bouncing ball lesson can help with the Translate Y curve for the cog, a nice slow-in and slow-out at
the apex of the jump.

10. Watch the elbows and wrist on the arm swings and make sure they have overlapping motion as they
swing (follow through).

11. The right foot needs to have its heel on the ground by frame 60, not 65. Copy the key from 65 to 60.
Click frame 65 in the timeline and then hold down the RMB and click Copy. Click frame 60 again and hold
down the RMB. Click Paste > Paste.
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12. The left leg does not bend until about frame 19, but the linear version does from frame 1. You fix that by
copying the first key of the left foot and pasting it in frame 19.

13. On frame 76, the legs are stretched out but the character on frame 76 is already bending his legs up for
the top of the jump. Stretch the legs out on the frame and key.

14. If you like the poses, it is time to add exaggeration.

15. Finally, you go to every controller and make sure the curves work correctly for the motion they are trying
to accomplish. You will touch every curve and key. You never want the computer to interpolate curves for
you. You are the artist and the computer is your tool.

Your final animation should resemble 06_Final_WReference.mov.

place video
here

Homework
Find or create reference of an Olympic jumper jumping over a high bar, or a person performing a Kung Fu jump-
kick or a little child jumping off an object.

Summary
A jump is a complicated movement to animate, but previous exercises have prepared you for this exercise. There
is much to consider when animating a jump. Video reference can help you study and work by showing you the dif-
ferent parts of character animation.