hello everyone in this tutorial I'm
going to show you how to animate a
jumping kick step by step using
reference
so let's begin open the sample scene
containing any of the standard
characters I'm choosing the standard
model mail
the character appears in the viewport
in this video I won't be going into
details of how to control the viewport
camera or use manipulators there are
dedicated tutorials from that however
let's quickly go over the hotkeys press
alt and left Mouse button to rotate alt
and mouse will to pan alt and right
Mouse button to zoom also press e to
rotate and W to translate
before we begin to animate we'll need to
find a reference any video sequence that
shows a motion we need will do in our
case we'll be using the video from the
motion actor Channel there are lots of
great video references on that channel
go check it out
I have already edited the video file
which now contains only the fragment I
need
now let's import this fragment to
Cascada
to do so go to file import
or you can simply drag the file into the
programming window
a plane shown a video reference has
appeared in the viewport now let's move
this reference to a more convenient
place I'd recommend keeping the
reference planes a bit to the site from
the character to clearly see what's
happening on the video you can also make
the plane bigger by using the scale
manipulator
to scale the plane by all three axes at
the same time you'll need to select the
orange Square in the center of the
manipulator
accidentally deselected the plane
containing the video you can select it
again in the outliner let's also move
the reference onto a separate track so
we could easily select or hide it in the
future select the reference plane and
click the add track button
here's the track that now contains the
video if you hold alt and double click
this track you will select every object
it contains this way you can select the
reference plane you can also click the I
icon to hide the objects in the track or
the lock icon to lock the track from
editing
fold the tracks for now and we are ready
to start making poses to do this I'll be
using the auto posing tool so let's
suppose the character to look similar to
what we have on the reference first of
all let's move the character's pelvis a
bit lower doing so will make the pelvis
Point active and it will turn blue now
we need to set up the feet the feet are
quite far apart
and here look Auto posing will
automatically place the foot on the heel
which is not something I need at the
moment so what I'm going to do is move
the food so it would stand on the ground
then select all the points of the foot
and move every point at the same time
these points have been activated as well
so now the foot won't stand on the hill
because I manually control every point
it has
keep in mind that rotating the foot will
influence the direction of the knee if
you need to rotate the knee you probably
should do this by rotating the foot
to move the character's feet even more
apar we'll need to further lower the
pelvis
use the same approach to work with the
arms rotating hands will have influence
on the elbows oftentimes this influences
enough for the elbows to take the
desired positions
when you need to deactivate some of the
points select them and press shift Z but
keep in mind that doing so will set our
bows back to their automatic positions
you can also rotate an arm across the
shoulder just click the shoulder with
the right Mouse button
sometimes this might cause the arm to
bend a little but in that case this is
not a problem
also in this pose you might need to
activate the direction controller if you
don't the character would rotate too
much following the arms you can activate
the neck controller and drag it to tilt
the character's body
now I'll rotate the character's head
once again I try to activate as few
points as possible here it's enough to
only move the direction controller for
the Hat
also don't forget to check the pose from
different camera angles you can even set
two viewports at once to view the pose
both from the front and from the side
press the spacebar to do so
now our pose is almost done so we can
start adding smaller details for
starters I don't really like how the
knee is rotated and this can't be fixed
by rotating the foot in this case I can
activate the knee point and move it a
bit hold Ctrl to slow down the
manipulator and move the points with
better Precision when you work on the
pose it's rather convenient to follow a
specific order first only activate the
big controllers then the point at the
hands and the feet and only activate the
remaining smaller points last this way
poses are more likely to turn out
quicker and better
the first pose is done also you can
press s to quickly switch to The View
mode to see how the pose would look
without any controllers press it again
to go back to the edit mode
so how do we choose the keyframes first
of all the frames where the character's
feeds either get off the ground or get
back on it these frames would Define
intervals with fulcrum points or without
them this is especially important for
autophysics
here in the video we see how the food
leaves the ground here is the Lost frame
where it still touches the ground so
it's a good place to set a key select
the frame and add a new keyframe by
clicking this button or pressing f
in this Frame the food stands on its
toes select every point of the foot and
move the pivot to the toes now we can
rotate the foot around the toes look at
the knee its point is activated and
because of that it tries to keep its
position leading to this weird bending
which means it's better to only activate
such points last
so deactivate this point by pressing
shift Z
next we select every controller in the
character's body keep in mind that the
Box selection only selects active points
we need to move the body forward and up
the left leg should bend a little the
right leg is not completely straight
either the active point at the shoulder
is also not needed anymore
now I'll deactivate the rotation
controller currently the character
rotates along with the arms and are more
likely to get a better result if I let
Auto pose and calculate border rotation
automatically make sure you keep track
of the character's line of sight the
attacking characters usually tend to
look right in front of them I think the
pose is all but complete so we can fix
the shoulder now the way it bands
doesn't look natural
I'm Maddie the Final Touch is while
holding the control key
[Music]
when you work on the pose it can be
useful to switch between the poses in
the previous and in the next keyframe
and to quickly do so hold shift and
press a or D
watch the reference carefully and
observe how and where various body parts
move
the foot here makes contact with the
ground again so that's a keyframe
deactivate the small point and the food
should be automatically placed on the
ground
and now let's rotate it
the pose should look better if the other
arm and leg are in The View
so I'll move the foot a bit further away
so the other one is visible when we look
at the character from the side I'm
rotating the arm along with the shoulder
around the point of the neck this
immediately rotates the character's body
as well
control the way this Pine bends by
moving the neck controller
also in poses like this it's important
to pay attention to the way the knees
Bend try to avoid right angles right
angles make the pose look less dynamic
this is the last frame before the jump
where the character's feet still on the
ground this means that we'll need a new
keyframe
we can fix the toes by pressing r
fixed points won't move meaning other
points won't affect them anymore
in this Frame the knees and the spine
are straightened up but now though it
would be better to leave the knees
slightly bent because later completely
straight limbs might not work well with
interpolation
of course animation with hard Bend legs
might come off as somewhat crude but for
the current stage this solution is good
enough
we can always fix that later when we
polish the animation
[Music]
now let's look at the pose in The View
mode and see how well it fits with the
previous one
by the way don't forget to save
different stages of your work from time
to time to quickly save a scene with a
new counting number press alt shift s
and of course Cascada has a naughty save
feature
so now we've set the keyframes where the
character makes contact with the ground
keyframes contain the most important
poses in the entire Motion in a way key
poses Define the motion for example in
the Jump part the highest point of the
jump will be the most important one this
is the part where the character performs
a kick but the pose where the leg starts
to swing is equally important that pose
will help to make the motion more
precise as the character does not begin
to raise the leg to make the kick right
from the ground at first the lag is
banned at the knee and if we are to
reflect that in the animation we'll need
another keyframe
first we can unfix the points
legs are raised and bent at the knees
don't forget that the angles at the
knees and elbows should not be straight
here we have to activate the points of
the head as the head and the neck are
both tilted
on the reference we can see the elbow
this means that the arm is bent
foreign
[Music]
then we select every point and move the
character up
now the frame with a kick
the lag is now straightened
[Music]
also the character's entire body leans
slightly forward
and finally The Landing frame this leg
has touched the ground already while the
other one is still in the air
the floor will automatically go up on
its toe when it makes contact with the
ground
[Music]
the character also begins to turn
I always try to deactivate the
controllers that are not really used in
a given pose
foreign
[Music]
next keyframe should be at the place
where both flags are touching the ground
I fixed the toe points so they don't
move when I move the main food point
we don't have to put too much effort
into each pose at the current stage
using Auto posing and autophysics tools
in Cascada requires a certain approach
currently we're using Auto posing to
create a kind of a rough sketch so don't
really care about making my poses
Flawless at this stage it's more
important to make them similar to the
ones in the reference not to go too much
into detail because in the future we
might need to make adjustments to them
the current stage prioritizes speed and
flexibility its purpose is to put the
very idea of your animation to the test
and once you're certain the animation
actually works you can then get to
refining the poses
and the final frame the character gets
to the Lost pose after the jump
in this pose both feet make full contact
with the ground otherwise this pose is
not very different from the previous one
so now we have all the main poses
creating them is the part of the
animation workflow known as blocking
let's try and play the animation for now
however it's just keyframes with nothing
in between
let's add interpolation hold the left
Mouse button and select every frame on
the timeline now select the bezier
clamped interpolation
you can quickly limit the working area
to only the last frame by using this
button
so let's play the animation again
it's already obvious that the
character's arms don't quite move like
we want them to
point at the character's hands moves in
a straight line towards the next frame
this happens because the default type of
interpolation is ik
the arms points lie on a separate track
which means we can set a different type
of interpolation for them in our case
it's better to use FK this way the arms
will move as a whole from the shoulders
there's also a global rotation type of
interpolation which is similar to the FK
when using FK the trajectory of a body
part can be influenced by the parts that
are higher in the hierarchy for example
if I move the shoulder this would change
the hands trajectory currently these
changes are minimal but they can become
rather significant
this doesn't happen when using Global
rotation
at this point though Global rotation
doesn't work all that well due to a
small number of keyframes because of
that it makes more sense to use it at
the later stages of the workflow
in our case we want to set the arms to
FK for the entire length of the
animation
let's forward the tracks back so the way
the arms move now is a bit more lifelike
but in some intervals there's still not
enough information to achieve the
desired motion
check this interval for instance
in our animation the character's arm is
in the halfway to its next position
meanwhile on the reference the character
is still setting up the pose tilting
backwards to make the following swing
sharper now we'll need more keys to make
these details show in the animation
let's add a new key Cascada has a tween
machine this tool allows you to quickly
match the object positions to those in
the previous or following frames open
the tween machine panel
select the points at the arms and move
this slider to the left this way you'll
move the arms position closer to the
previous key
here it would be enough to only move the
arm but sometimes this tool can save you
a lot of work
I'm gonna make some manual adjustments
to the position of the arm
the character's body slightly rotates in
the opposite direction
[Music]
the position of the leg doesn't change
in this interval so we can simply copy
its points from frame 0.
we can further improve the character's
pose on this Frame the luck here is
straightened almost completely but the
food is still in full contact with the
ground as the character uses the select
to propel himself the lag acts as a
fulcrum
foreign
here we also have the arm moving in a
rather notable way sometimes it might be
difficult to grasp the characteristics
of emotion when you only see it from one
angle for a case like this you can try
different approaches or attempt to
replicate this motion by yourself for
now though we shouldn't be getting too
much into it keep in mind that at this
stage our goal is to make a quick sketch
of the animation
foreign
[Music]
here we can add a new key to update the
position of the lag
[Music]
we can also add another key after the
landing because the character squats a
bit right after normally autophysics is
able to add details like scores enough
to rejump automatically but it won't
hurt to add a key just in case
let me show you another simple trick
let's take a look at the Lex trajectory
during the kick
the further the points from each other
are on the trajectory the higher the
speed is on this interval and here we
can see that right before the kick the
distance between the points decreases
which means the leg slows down before
the kick on this interval it only covers
this short distance
The Slowdown happens due to the
properties of interpolation
but it doesn't make the kick look very
impressive
in reality the leg should actually gain
maximum speed right before the kick
to adjust the speed we can create a new
key next to the one with a kick
now we need to move the leg in the way
that will make the distances between the
points longer
alright now the leg accelerates before
the kick
but there's also an interval after the
kick where the leg stops a bit too
abruptly and moves backward it would be
better to add a little overlap in there
which I'll use a different type of
interpolation for this
select the frames with the character in
mid-air and choose the bezier
interpolation
this type of interpolation might produce
questionable results for the legs
resting on the ground such as causing
them to slide but for kicks and other
similar moves it works really well
and so we end up with the animation
draft which is pretty close to the
reference
it is time to enable all the physics the
physics goes shows how the animation
would look with certain physics Tools in
settings applied
the color of the stripe above the
timeline represents the intervals with
or without fulcrra the orange interval
indicates a jump the character doesn't
have any foreground points there
the yellow one has a single fulcrum
and the green intervals represent frames
with big fulcrum area
if the color of the interval doesn't
match the intended idea the raw ways to
fix that for example this interval is
green meaning both Flags act as fulcrur
while in reality this foot doesn't touch
the ground
selects all points of the foot go to
fulcrum tab click not fulcrum button the
green area under the foot has
disappeared and the interval color is
now yellow
what does autophysics do with animations
like this by default
I'll use a very schematic animation as
an example the character here makes a
jump but the pose doesn't change and the
interpolation type is set to linear
the center of mass trajectory is
suggested by autophysics is shown as a
red line
by the way you can choose which elements
you'd like to see rendered by
right-clicking The View mode button
look at the trajectory of the center of
mass now the character's quartz before
making a jump
the jump in trajectory and velocity have
also been adjusted and having landed the
character's courts again moving a bit
like a spring making the animation feel
more lifelike without adding any new
keyframes and this is how autophysics
can improve the animation
if I add new keyframes autophysics will
take them into account as well for
example I could add a key to position
the character a bit lower and the
physics goes will reflect these changes
by making the characters Co-op more
there might be times when you'll need to
use additional autophysics parameters to
achieve an artistic result for example
these chords before and after the jump
are controlled by the vertical Force
smoothness parameter if you set it to
zero the character won't squat at all
when setting up the jump
with this particular animation it would
look strange but for some complex
movements a setting like this might come
in handy as a rule when the animation
follows the reference close enough it
should turn out rather accurate in terms
of physics to make the difference
between the ghosts and the original
animation easier to notice you can click
this button it makes the ghost
coordinates match the character
the biggest difference is may occur in
the parts of the animation where the
character performs a jump in our case
the physics ghost shows that an average
human being could not possibly jump this
high with the Earth gravity but what if
my character is no ordinary person but a
superhero maybe it's my intention for
him to jump higher than normal person
ever would but also obey the laws of
physics there's several ways to achieve
that for instance I could extend the
duration of the jump currently the
character doesn't have enough time to
reach the height and need but if I add
more frames it might solve the problem
on the timeline select the interval
containing the frames of the jump press
Ctrl t a yellow border will appear
around the frames drag the last frame to
stretch the interval
so now there should be enough time for
the character to jump higher
however increasing the number of frames
and thus extending the time May
sometimes become an issue say in games
it's often critical for the movements to
be rather Swift for this purpose you may
want to adjust the gravity instead
first I will undo the changes by
pressing Ctrl Z
now I will try to solve the problem
using gravity
the higher the value is the less time
it'll take the character to reach the
same height meaning that jump will turn
out higher within the same number of
frames
here I want to make the animation
realistic so I'll leave the Earth's
gravity value
I also won't increase the height of the
jump too much
instead I will only add a couple of
frames it's okay that the character
would jump a bit lower
physics can also correct the character's
rotation in mid-air check out the
reference pay attention to the way the
actor rotates at the beginning of the
motion he faces the camera but when he
lands on the other side he now faces the
opposite direction he did not do that on
purpose nor attempted to make the whole
stun look better this is a completely
natural consequence of the laws of
physics
the thing is rotation in mid-air is
consistent and doesn't change without
external influence for example if you
toss an object open the air this object
won't just start rotating all of a
sudden unless of course it hits
something an object always retains its
angular momentum while airborne
this works exactly the same for complex
living creatures it might be more
difficult to sell though because
creatures can change their poses in
mid-air changing the pose can lead to
changes in the rotation speed ballet
dancers for example hold their arms
closer to their bodies to rotate faster
but the angular momentum always Remains
the Same well let's actually go back to
our kick animation let's see how it
would look if the character didn't turn
just jumped up and landed in the
position identical to a starting one
after all sometimes we might need to
make this kind of Animation as well
so we enable autophysics and see that it
rotates the character a bit during the
jump and the lag kicks a bit sideways in
our animation the difference is very
subtle but in some other cases it might
be much more pronounced in this
animation the leg rotates upward but in
the end the resulting rotation evens out
so the lag hits lower than it should
in Cascada we can monitor rotation with
great Precision using the angular
momentum tool look at this Arrow where
the character is Airborne its length and
direction should not change currently
the arrow Direction changes on these
frames meaning angular momentum changes
as well which shouldn't be possible
according to the laws of physics this is
why autophysics rotates the character in
mid-air making the angular momentum
consistent and the arrow is now
equalized on the physical ghost we can
see the end result
I want the leg to keep its position from
my original animation during the kick so
I'm selecting these frames
now select the points of the leg open
the physics corrector Tab and set the
value in this field to 100. this
practically means that I want the
autophysics to strictly follow my
original animation
by the way make sure that this button is
turned on this way the values you set
will be applied to every selected frame
now the leg retains its position but
look how the character's torso has moved
this way the character compensates for
the leg rotation
and such compensation can be seen in
many different motions both in mid-air
and on the ground if you follow the
reference as closely as possible
autophysics is most likely to only make
some minor adjustments to it this was
the case with our animation with this
animation we don't need to change
rotation too much
but I'll still set the leg performing
the kick to keep its position on this
interval
the first I'll fix a few things after
retiring has been applied the kick pose
moves one frame forward so kick in frame
no longer has a key
it will be better to once again set it
as a keyframe because it's convenient to
have main poses on keyframes now we can
either move the previous key or set the
bezier interpolation for it
[Music]
so select the like points select the
frames with the kick turn on the
interval edit mode Now set the value to
100 so the kicking lag will fully retain
its position on these frames
so if the length and the height of the
jump match your intention you can simply
click the snap button
then the character will move just like
the ghost did
pay attention to the timeline the pink
color means that different tracks have
different types of interpolation set to
them as you can see on every track that
contains the character the type of
interpolation has been set to fixed
interpolation is automatically set to
fix when we snap the character to Auto
physics with this option enabled
fixed interpolation won't change as we
change keyframes
for now however we don't need this
let's undo the Lost action by pressing
Ctrl Z
then I'll turn off the fixed
interpolation button and once again
apply autophysics to the character
let's also set the interpolation on the
jumping interval back to bezier
at this point we can turn off the
reference as we have no intention to
recreate it fully besides timings in our
animation are already different from
those in the reference
autophysics can also make the animation
feel more lifelike buy it in secondary
motion let me show you how this works in
this simple example
say we have this simple animation with a
dinosaur in it the dinosaur simply moves
upward then descends and just stands
still for some time
secondary motion applies various swings
and legs for various parts of the
character
this mode can work separately from the
main autophysics mode Let's disable the
physics character and enable secondary
motion
because the regular correction is turned
off the stripe above the timeline no
longer shows the number of fulcrum
points currently there are no changes on
the physics goes because we haven't yet
defined points to which secondary motion
should be applied
I select the points at the tail and open
the secondary motion panel there we can
see four parameters all these parameters
can be animated meaning they can have
different values on different frames if
we want to change the value for each
frame at once we'll need to turn on this
button it should be highlighted red
so the first two parameters Define how
much of the original animation in either
Global or local space should be taken
into account by secondary motion the
lower the values in these fields are the
greater the changes will be
The Dumping setting controls the number
of oscillations
the air friction setting defines how
much various body parts should
decelerate under the influence of the
environment think about this as making
the air more dense
there cannot be any sad instruction on
how exactly you should add secondary
motion to your animation it always
depends on the kind of Animation you're
going for and on your own artistic
intention here for example I think it
would be best to add secondary motion to
the interval with the kick and the one
right after
in this way I like the character's body
to react to the kick and to The Landing
you can enable secondary motion on the
physics settings panel
I'll start with the shoulders the
shoulders said the general movement for
the arms
if you like to change the value for
every frame on the interval make sure
that this button is enabled I'll try to
set Global blending to 50. in this case
local blending can be turned off
so it's clear that the current values
are too high for now though I'd like to
see if the Motions themselves look
appealing
and this is easy to see with higher
values
now the arms
I will set the local blending value to
10. at this value you can clearly see
the changes
now the arms display major overlappings
on this interval however I don't need
them to overlap like this I only need
the character to move the arms down
so I'll increase the global blending
value
after I do this overlappings remain only
on the interval right after the kick and
also the one that follows the landing
now I'll need to reduce the effect of
the changes
to do this I could try increasing the
damping air friction or local blending
values for your animation different
values might be a better fit simply
enter various numbers and see which ones
produce better results
[Music]
now I can also set up secondary motion
for the Torso and the head
at first I'll use very low blending
values to better see the characteristics
of the changes
[Music]
after that I'll be decreasing their
strength
on this interval I really don't need the
head to shake
here I'll set a higher value
then I'll be changing values in this
window and see how they affect the
results
I'll be trying different values and see
which ones work best
[Music]
I think I like how the Motions play out
now I can apply the secondary motion to
my character
when you try to apply secondary motion
you'll get this warning the best way to
apply this effect is to only do it once
otherwise you might get a situation
where a new secondary animation would be
applied to a previous one bit by bit
amplifying the effect
in my case I have no intention of making
any major adjustments to the physics so
I can freely apply the secondary motion
I'll also reset the settings to their
default State this will help me avoid
applying secondary motion twice even if
it would remain enabled
sometimes even the smallest of secondary
motion effects can alter the physical
behavior of the whole character
so after you snap the character to the
secondary motion I'd recommend enabling
the basic physics correction mode and
snap the character again
now the main part of the animation is
complete but let's polish it a bit shall
we
polishing animation is best performed in
the point controller mode this way
you'll be able to adjust at particular
Point without affecting its neighbors
first of all let's add more keyframes
for the fee
then we can animate the feed with
greater precision and Define not only
the fulcrum frames but also frames where
a foot either fully stops on the ground
or simply changes its position a bit
at this stage it is better to set the
global rotation interpolation type for
the arms
after this we can check the trajectories
for the body parts
to do so select the frames on the
timeline and click the points to see
their trajectories
make sure that the trajectories are
smooth and form curve-like shapes
go to different keyframes and correct
the positions of body parts in them
notice how various body parts behave on
the reference
pay attention to both the shape of the
line and to the distances between the
points
your goal is to improve the intervals
where border Parts suddenly slow down or
accelerate too much
this stage is different for everyone
because of this I won't be sharing the
entire process of polishing
it can be rather long and tedious
but still this is something that truly
makes the animation complete
the better your initial keyframes are
the less effort you'll have to put into
cleaning up your animation
check how your animation looks from
different angles it's best when
trajectories look good from every angle
make sure the poses and all frames are
good for example this Frame the arm goes
through the body
[Music]
on certain intervals you can even put
fixed type of interpolation to use and
adjust every frame manually
[Music]
you can play the animation in slow
motion to make the smaller detail easier
to read
foreign
so was the animation is all but ready we
can apply all the physics Corrections
one last time
this time you can disable this button
and after that you can export your
animation as enough BX or turn it into a
video
and that said I hope your animation
turned out well feel free to share it on
our Discord Channel if you like the
Cascade team will also appreciate your
comments and answer your questions if
you have any you can contact us through
Discord email or the feedback form or
just leave a comment below so thank you
and I'll see you next time
thank you