3D Studio Max biped restrictions?

Question

I have a stock biped character in 3D studio max which has a jump animation.

The problem I have with the jump animation is that there is actual y offset happening inside it which makes it awkward to play while the character is jumping since it's not only jumping in the game world but the jump animation is adding its own height offset.

I'm tryuing to remove the jump animations height offset, so far I've found the root node and deleted all its key frames which has helped a bit.

The problem I'm having now is that the character still has some height offset and if I try to lower it it has a fake 'ground' that isn't at 0 and the limbs sort of bend on the imaginary floor, si there a way to remove this restriction just for the jump animation?

Here's what I mean: https://i.sstatic.net/cQzzJ.png

Any idea for a fix? I'm using Unity 3D if that opens any other possibilities...

Answer 1

Try, not to remove offset of root in animation, but to reanimate all root animation part of jumping, so that every frame feet would be on the ground. And don't change anything while not in animating mode in 3ds MAX because that may ruin all animation.

Answer 2

I'd recommend simply offsetting the bottom of your character within your engine. Use a locator node in side of the model and animate it to always be at the location of the character's feet then use the location of that locator as the 'base' of the character for physics calculations.

This allows some pretty cool things such as jump height entirely being defined by the animation.