Jump Animation Approach

Mazyod

Hello Guys!

I have to hand it to the guys behind Spine, I just love the software! The features and bug fixes being rolled out like crazy are well worth the praise :clap: :clap: (One time I had drafted an email with a bug report to send, but the bug-fix got solved and rolled out before I had time to send the email!)

So, now I have a question regarding how to animate a jump. I am animating characters jumping over other obstacles, and I was wondering about these two approaches:

1 - Make the skeleton animation include the actual height that the character jumps. (Kinda like the spine boy animation example)

2 - Animate the body parts while keeping the pelvis area at a fixed position, and move the whole sprite in code.

Note:
The character might jump very short or very long distances, preferably with the same velocity (ie variable time period). I think I might need to hold the jump posture a few hundred milliseconds while attempting a long jump.

Any ideas on which approach is usually considered best practice?

Thanks!

Pharan

This has little to do with Spine.
Most classic games use something closer to the 2nd approach. It allows the code to handle things like gravity.

If you look closely at how classic platformer and versus-fighting game sprites move (especially from the SNES to PlayStation One eras, there are plenty of youtube videos of them or if you have the games themselves), you should find a very clear pattern, as well as differing approaches on handling the many little details. It's hard to miss.

Mazyod

Pharan wrote
This has little to do with Spine.
Most classic games use something closer to the 2nd approach. It allows the code to handle things like gravity.

If you look closely at how classic platformer and versus-fighting game sprites move (especially from the SNES to PlayStation One eras, there are plenty of youtube videos of them or if you have the games themselves), you should find a very clear pattern, as well as differing approaches on handling the many little details. It's hard to miss.

Thanks, yes, it has nothing to do with spine, I really was looking for general animation tips and ideas. I don't think I'm able to figure out the underlying implementation of street fighter, and such games, just by playing and watching videos. For example, they could theoretically be using animation frames, for all I can tell.

If the second approach is actually the best, it also introduces a painful challenge, which is the sync between the animation and action in code, as to not look weird. How can that be solved?

Thanks,

Nate

You could have a simple jump start animation, hold that pose while airborne (easily done by just not looping the animation), then a landing animation whenever you hit the ground. You could make the jump start animation more sophisticated (longer) and then for a short jump it might be cancelled before it finishes. If this looks bad you could play it faster for a small jump (if you know it will be small beforehand).

Mazyod

Very interesting suggest, Nate, thanks. I think that idea would deliver the effect I am after exactly how I imagined.

Søren

I would animate the entire jump. Then make three copies of it and remove keys so you end up with a jump start, then a hold (or middle part) and finally a land. The "hold" part can then be looped so it can be extended however long you need a jump to be.

Nate

Yep, I agree with Shiu. If the hold animation is the same as the last frame in your start animation, you don't need a hold animation. It may look cooler to have one though (eg hands making small circles or something).