Number of Frames For These

chacha

I'm currently trying to create animations for the following actions: Idle, Walk, Run, Jump. But before jumping in I thought I should ask, do most of you use a standard number of frames, especially if the animations will be used in an engine, such as, UE4 or Unity. If so what are the general number of frames you use for the following: Idle, Walk, Run, Jump?

LMP

There's no standard, but there are minimums of key frames... A walk cycle ideally has 9 key frames, an Idle could get away with 3 key frames, enough to make it loop, a Run could easily be up to 14 keys...

Jumps... this is where things get complicated... a Jump should really be broken into 3 animations, Jump, Free-fall, and Landing. The free-fall could be a simple loop with maybe 2 or 3 key frames.

Total number of frames... well, that can vary... and is largely dependent on how long the animation should be at default playback speed. But, generally game animations are created at 30 frames per second.

chacha

LMP wrote: »

There's no standard, but there are minimums of key frames... A walk cycle ideally has 9 key frames, an Idle could get away with 3 key frames, enough to make it loop, a Run could easily be up to 14 keys...

Jumps... this is where things get complicated... a Jump should really be broken into 3 animations, Jump, Free-fall, and Landing. The free-fall could be a simple loop with maybe 2 or 3 key frames.

Total number of frames... well, that can vary... and is largely dependent on how long the animation should be at default playback speed. But, generally game animations are created at 30 frames per second.

Okay, I was thinking I might be going a little overboard. Btw, since we are on the topic of the difficulty with the jump animation. Since jump height is done in the engine through code. Is it necessary to animate a jump height using the Y translation or one can get away with leaving that at 0 and take care of the jump height inside the engine?

GlowingPotato

You can animate the translate Y channel for jumping, but you will need to mute the channel for exporting. Jumping should be done inside the engine.

DavidCruz

GlowingPotato wrote: »

You can animate the translate Y channel for jumping, but you will need to mute the channel for exporting. Jumping should be done inside the engine.

Quick question, can animation be controlled, I.E. speed of playback within engine? very curious about this. Or should speed be handled within the app first and or would be desirable if it was handled at the app level and not in the engine?

Obscura

It can be controlled within the engine.

DavidCruz

Obscura wrote: »

It can be controlled within the engine.

Thanks for the info, good to know.

chacha

GlowingPotato wrote: »

You can animate the translate Y channel for jumping, but you will need to mute the channel for exporting. Jumping should be done inside the engine.

Ok great, I'm glad you also pointed out the mute option. I was looking at some examples and was worried that I might need to delete all translate y keys prior to exporting.