The jumping animation proved a very difficult animation as the body and hands move relative to each other and since I needed the characters body to move a lot to climb after the jump it required a lot of keyframes to keep the position near to the original location.
I started by importing the idle animation and positioning it in the correct location and setting the keyframes for the hands, feet and body.
I started by importing the idle animation and positioning it in the correct location and setting the keyframes for the hands, feet and body.
Deciding that I wanted to have him look from the bottom of the object to the top, as if he wasn't sure how he would jump it, I key framed his head slowly move up from the bottom. Alongside this, I wanted him to prepare for the jump so I raised his arms slightly towards the end of the head movement and bent his legs.
The next stage was to have him hang from the overhang for a bit before climbing. From the crouch position, I moved the whole body up and stretched the legs to a relaxed but straight position to show maximum spring from the jump. The hands then raised up and connected with the top of the overhang.
From the previous position I wanted to raise his torso as he was pulling himself up but keep the hands in the same position. However the hands were relative to the torso so everytime you moved the torso the hands would move with it. Therefore there were a lot of keyframes required to keep it locked in the original position. Alongside this, I needed to keep the hands from moving unnecessarily so I edited the keyframes in the Graph Editor.
The graph editor allows for animators to change the position and frame a keyframe is set to without having to re-key anything. However it also allows them to change the type of transition between keyframes. I wanted the animation between the frames to remain as flat as possible so I used Linear Tangent. You can see a comparison below. The left is automatic which smooths an animation between keyframes whereas Linear creates a constant animation between frames meaning no slow or fast segments.
The graph editor allows for animators to change the position and frame a keyframe is set to without having to re-key anything. However it also allows them to change the type of transition between keyframes. I wanted the animation between the frames to remain as flat as possible so I used Linear Tangent. You can see a comparison below. The left is automatic which smooths an animation between keyframes whereas Linear creates a constant animation between frames meaning no slow or fast segments.
From that point, I then have his arms raise up one after the other and place his torso onto the ledge slightly. Again, due to the torso and hand issue this stage required quite a few keyframes and manipulation in the graph editor.
Here, I wanted the character to pull himself up and bend one of his legs onto the platform ready to raise himself up. Thanks to the IK handle of the leg, I can simply drag the foot and the leg will follow with it. Therefore it was just a matter of dragging the foot to the correct location and keyframing it. This didn't have the same issue as the hand as I didn't need it to stay in place when raising the torso.
I then rotate the body slightly to allow the other leg to raise up. I rotate the foot and manipulate the knee locator to enable the leg to rest nicely on the surface. I then use the starting keyframes as the last keyframes to return him to the starting position, this slides the legs back into place and the torso to an upright position but now standing on the platform instead of the floor.
The jumping animation was going to be used in conjunction with the push animation so that the thief would push the box to a window then jump on the box. With the creation of the scene, we added an alternate way to climb the building by introducing an access ladder to the side of the building. This eliminated the need for this animation.