Jumping from a ravine... Motion studio

[Nacho]

Hello! I think this is quite good, but I want some crits before I go on... Any major flaws? I am not looking for a paintover/change of style, move a pixel here and there, but crits about the general motion.

Anyone have ripped graphics from Conrad in Flashback? I did not ripp, or even used his jumping animations as a reference (only the standing up looking to the right for size references) but it might save a lot of work to me to take a look of one of his sprite sheets.

Thanks.

Oh! And the image hasn' t been rotoscoped either ^_^ I am happy to say it's 100% from scratch!

[MrColossal]

It looks pretty good, need to see more colour to make sure that his arms aren't elongating in the middle of the fall but the only thing I think you could do to help this is remove some frames from the ending.

It happens too slow and the little slide his body does also happens after he has come to a stop which is weird.

Otherwise I look forward to seeing this completed.

[Galen]

Thats amazing. Perhaps his initial impact with the ground seems a little soft.
Also, could you post a link to the website of the software you are using (I'm assuming it's called Motion Studio, but I can't find it).

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The way he lands seems really awkward to me.  It would be more likely after a fall like that to just smack into the ground rather than roll forward.  The motion itself is nice, though I would like to see the opposite arms and legs more in the later frames, since it's not likely they would perfectly synchronize.

I did an example that is very blocky to show how I would expect this jump to end.

[space boy]

The jump at the beginning looks good, but the way he goes into that weird diving pose somewhere in the middle and bounces off the ground bothers me. I think you could benefit from using the flashback sprites as a reference.
I appreciate the work you put into this, but imho the falling and landing parts need work.


Me while watching ProgZmax' edit:
.... crunch.... crunch..... crunch.... crunch.... crunch....

[Galen]

Yeah, he seems to push off the ground rather than rolling do to the forward momentum.

[radiowaves]

Yes, the fall seems a bit ankward. Is it supposed to be some kind of trick jump like parkour people do and survive, or just a suicide? If its parkour, then the rolling should be a bit faster and he should not land flat on his back (this could cause him some serious problems). But if its suicide, then he shouldn't roll but just slide forward a bit, with brains spilling out of course 

Oh, on a second look, he seems to be landing more on his arms than legs. The force should brake his arms I think. The main problem seems to be that he lands with his legs cramped under chest, legs should should be stretched a bit, but not stretched out, just enough room to act like suspension when taking the blow and then roll forward. You don't land on squatting position, do you?

This is just my amateur opinion. Don't know much about motion. Try watching some parkour videos or something.

[Evil]

Both aren't bad, but I think he curls too soon. If I were jumping, I probably wouldn't curl up or brace for impact that soon. Not that I wouldn't want to but I wouldn't have time. Sort of like those people that jump from bridges and flail their arms for ever until they nearly hit the water and then they pull them to their side.

[voh]

Oh, on a second look, he seems to be landing more on his arms than legs. The force should brake his arms I think.

I'd like to emphasize this. As it is now, the guy's going to break his ankles and his arms in multiple places. Stretched out legs, knees bent slightly, to compensate after touching the ground, if movement forward is enough, THEN the arms get involved, but generally sticking your hands out means not being able to have " quality alone time" for a couple of weeks at the very least.

[ildu]

I like the jump at the beginning and the tumble in the end. The middle is just a little bit rocky.

First of all, the motion isn't fluid, meaning that the change in velocity is too great in the middle. He jumps, he's in mid-air for a while, and then he almost teleports to the ground, where the ending tumble is slow again. Whereas it's correct that there is acceleration, I think it's way too sudden in your animation.

Another thing is that he's leaning way too forward. The way we go on all fours in a fall is the reaction after the feet impact the ground. In mid-flight he should be relatively upright axel-wise (intending that the hips/backbone is the point of measure) until he hits the ground after which he tumbles because the motion is forward and to help the legs take the impact. If you look at the mid-flight frames right before he hits the ground, he's so tilted forward, he looks like he's praying or performing a Spiderman swimjump. And for the axel to be so tilted forward, you really have to have jumped badly from the very beginning. If you've ever swimjumped or snowboarded before, you'll probably agree that whenever you fall badly on a jump, it's because you've lost control of your flight from the very beginning. Of course, a jump can go bad mid-flight, but that requires a longer flight. I'm just saying that if you have normal coordination and you jumped on your own, you should stay quite well in control, even if you're jumping to your death. So he probably shouldn't be landing on all fours, and breaking his arms, elbows and wrists while doing it .

The third issue is the profile. Both arms and legs aren't shown separately in the profile in the mid-flight frames, so he looks kinda weird. Flapping arms and legs might do a world of good there.

Here's an example of how one would jump and roll in real life (granted, there's not as much forward movement, the height isn't much and the roll is intended in this version):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5lJuqsKdAVc

Is it supposed to be a custom animation only to be shown once or twice, or something more prevalent to the gameplay? I'm assuming this is for a game.

EDIT:
I did a quick stick-figure animate-over:

[markbilly]

ildu's is perfect. Obviously the figure isn't the right size, etc but the motion looks natural. The effect of an uncontrolled fall is really important, the almost gymnastic nature of the original animation just doesn't seem right.

[InCreator]

With that roll, it sure does feel like free running gone wrong.
Only free runners don't jump like this. They jump from prone position, with both feet.

If it's not a free runner, the land on hands IS false, hands-knees should break after such altitude and mass. He couldn't roll over anymore.

I prefer the original: Despite some errors, it looks coolest.

[Nacho]

First of all, thanks everyone for the inputs. I read them very carefully and all of them will work.

Mr. C , Space boy and Crazy mentioned something I noticed, but I innocently auto-convinced me of the opposite... I must give up, and recognise that, whereas the jump and landing momentum seems to be good, then it turns a bit slow...

I will mess with the frames,  removing some (A quick attempt did not really work) or changing the frames. Thanks to Idlu' s silly youtube video I see that what the guys really does is some kind of "lateral" roll in spite of the frontal one I did... I will work on this, because what I had in mind was a "controlate" fall. I call allways use my "frontal roll" with a "on his feet" landing to do another animation, no? 

In Idlu' s and Prog' s works I "feel" that the guy is dead or terribly hurt after the fall. Sorry for not mentioning that, but I would like the guy to say something like "ugh!" after the fall, showing he is still alive, but slightly harmed. Anyway, I will use those works as a reference for further animations (Idlu' s descontrolate fall mixed with terrible Prog' s landing will look awesome when "falling to death", I agree with Markbilly). Thanks to both. Anyway, I still agree with InC, and think that, for what I had in mind, my work with some changes works better.

Oh! Crazy... I am using animation shop coming with the Paint Shop Pro program, not anything "special" like a vectors or a rotoscope program... Sorry to dissapoint you I called the animation motion studio because I' d like to make more studios of this kind, and share them with the community, nothing else... A Flashback style game might be done, if I learn to do BGs and I find a coder, though ^_^.