A change of state, such a run into a jump is an excellent way for an animator to test their understanding of the principles of weight, timing, arcs, and lines of action.
Weight:
As creating a convincing sense of weight would add realism to my run and jump cycle, I wanted to make my character feel grounded in the contact poses, and to generate the impression of impact and resistance by having the body compress and squash to absorb the impact when the foot hits the ground during the run, and to a greater extent when landing after the jump.
Timing:
In a run and jump cycle, timing is used to convey the speed, energy and force of an action. Therefore, while my animation still reflects the speed and energy of the run, I slowed the timing of the run-up a little to have it appear more focused and deliberate, and ensured it still feels natural by having the feet hit the ground in a regular pattern. Turning to the jump, so the animation doesn’t feel floaty, I’ve been careful to follow the rules of physics with the character accelerating upwards at the start of the jump and decelerating to ‘hang’ momentarily at the top of the arc, before accelerating faster as gravity pulls her downwards.
Arcs:
Used in animation to make movement appear more fluid and realistic, arcs refer to the natural, curved trajectory followed when bodies or their body parts move, such as in the swing of an arm or a leg. Therefore, to prevent my animation from feeling stiff and stilted I’ve kept the arms moving upwards in an arc while the character in the air, and used overlapping action to smooth the movement.
Line of Action:
A line of action is ‘an imaginary line extending through the action of a figure which strengthens the dramatic effect’ (Blair, 1994) and defines the overall flow and energy of a character’s pose or movement.
Source: Blair, 1994
Therefore, to increase the dynamism of my jump, I purposefully created a strong line of action in my mid-air pose which continued to give my animation a sense of fluidity and movement, even as the character briefly ‘hangs’ at the top of the arc.
Following the refence below, the seven key poses of my jump were planned as follows:
Neutral > Anticipation (a coiled pose where energy is built up before the jump) > Stretch > Jump (mid-air poses) > Contact > Overshoot (and a recovery position to absorb the recoil) > Neutral.
Source: YouTube, 2019
My aim was to portray a sense of purpose and intention in my run up, with my character appearing focused on the task ahead, leaning forward to relay a sense of urgency, while building up speed and momentum (relayed through the use of deliberate arm and shoulder swing), before creating squash and a coiling effect during the anticipation stage to prepare for push off, and help thrust her into the air, where the arms are also thrown upwards to assist the movement.
Alongside the series of six run and jump tutorials at @rd3d_animation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCe2un4D-Q&list=PL3-QyjKQWWaLHTluDQ1R8XrQiY_Qq-H4C) I also used the real-world video reference below, to better visualise the transition between the run and the jump. This too was a useful asset to assist my posing, analyse how the character moves forward in space, to determine how the centre of gravity shifts to maintain balance throughout the jump, and how the arms act as a natural counterbalance during the landing and the overshoot/recovery phase.
Source: YouTube, 2023
Funnily, when planning my animation I thought back to my ‘A’ Level Science classes, and the Law of Conservation of Energy – that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred from one form to another, and so the upward thrust, and ultimately the height of the jump, could only reflect the amount of kinetic energy created by the run, and the potential energy from the coil in the anticipation pose.
Conscious that the arms wouldn’t move with the same speed or timing, to increase believability I adjusted these attributes, introduced a little overlap, and created asymmetry in the arm movement by amending the height each arm ultimately travels.
Finally, little details were added to make the animation feel more realistic. These included having the eyes looking up to the sky in the direction of travel during the upward phase of the jump, looking downwards to spot the landing and when making contact with the ground, before recovering and making eye contact in the neutral pose.
My initial run and jump cycle, can be found below:
Run and Jump – Front View
Run and Jump – Side View
Tutor feedback was that while the animation contained some excellent poses, there were some issues with the timing of the jump, and that while the character hangs momentarily at the top of the arc, as gravity starts to reverse she would drop a little faster than in the animation. Also, accelerating the landing would make it feel more impactful. Finally, from from frame 64, tilting the whole upper body slightly further backwards would both stretch out the pose, and allow the weight of the hips to land first.
Having implemented these changes, my final animation can be seen below:
Front View
Perspective View
Side View
At first, with a run and jump cycle based on an understanding of physics, anatomy and the application of force, I’d been little concerned about how to make it look natural and realistic, but I honestly couldn’t be happier with my final outcome. It was great to again create a bespoke animation, and having initially felt a little apprehensive about animating the transition between the run and jump, in the end I navigated this with ease.
References:
Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon Animation. Tustin, California: Walter Foster Publishing, Inc.
YouTube (2019). Animation Reference – Jump 3: MoMe3600. [online]. [Accessed: 26 October 2024].