History Main / MidAirBobbing

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' All ghosts can bob in midair if they choose to and it is part of their ability to {{Flight fly}}. This is due to the fact that gravity does not affect them the same way it does humans, animals, etc.

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' All ghosts can bob in midair if they choose to and it is part of their ability to [[Flight fly]]. This is due to the fact that gravity does not affect them the same way it does humans, animals, etc.

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' All ghosts can bob in midair if they choose to. This is due to the fact that gravity does not affect them the same way it does humans, animals, etc.

* The player in ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}''. Since you're in a spaceship, it's presumably drift correction.
* The Allied Rocketeers in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert 2'' do this.
* Happens in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' when the hover power is engaged and the hero isn't otherwise moving. The [[http://www.cityofheroes.com/ official website]] header makes it even more obvious.
* Giving an enemy in an ''RPG Maker'' game the 'flying' attribute will cause it to midair bob in battle.
* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', the gravity thrones of the Prophets and Rtas 'Vadum both behave this way.
* Watch the ships in ''[[VideoGame/{{Wipeout}} Wipeout HD]]'' when at a standstill. As one would reasonably expect from machines designed to perform best at very high speeds, the ships appear to be performing drift correction to avoid shifting sideways as well as bobbing naturally with air currents, especially close to the ground, and when they move faster, they stop doing this--presumably due to their shapes enacting aerodynamic stability on the ships, allowing them to fly without wiggling everywhere.

* All "Flying" characters in ''VideoGame/MarvelAvengersAlliance'' do this for their idle animation.
* Several characters in ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' bob while flying, such as bats (which serve the purpose as obstacles, especially at the beginning when player has no weapons) and Misery (who bobs for no other reason than because ''not'' bobbing looks weird).
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Glider}}'' series, the player's glider will bob up and down at the top of updrafts, as an entirely natural consequence of the VentPhysics.

* Hoverdines in ''VideoGame/GroundControl'' do this, even though one would imagine the Order soldiers inside them probably get seasick from all the bobbing.
* In several ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'' games, cutscenes that feature Yu and Rei the ghosts have their sprites constantly in motion to indicate they're floating.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', the Money Trough, an airborne version of the Piggy Bank storage item, remains in one spot in the air when summoned, slowly bobbing up and down.
* In both ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'', if the player character takes off in flight with the Wings of Wrath but stands still, he will bob slightly up and down. This effect is absent when you start moving in any direction.[[note]]This also applies to other id Tech 1 games being run on the [=ZDoom=] family of source ports, with the "fly" console command.[[/note]]

* At the Bad-Anon meeting, [[VideoGame/PacMan Clyde the Ghost]] floats up-and-down or left-and-right (above a chair) with the typical pace for his game.

* In ''Manga/TheSlayers'', characters have a variety of methods of flight, but where the human characters tend to leave the ground for specific directional movement (using "Ray Wing" or the oddly named "Levitation"), Xellos just kind of relaxes in the air a lot, and bobs while he does so. He's perfectly capable of ''not'' bobbing -- sitting or standing perfectly still in the air -- so unless it's merely an affordance to viewers, it's because he enjoys it.

SelectiveGravity causes many items in video games to do this, where the bobbing (usually combined with [[EverythingsBetterWithSpinning spinning]]) helps catch the player's eye to the collectible.

SelectiveGravity causes many items in video games to do that.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fighting games, characters who hover will usually bob up and down, such as Patchouli and Cirno in their standing idle pose, as well as almost all characters in ''Hopeless Masquerade'' and ''Urban Legend in Limbo'', where combat happens in midair.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' are the queens of this trope: not only do they perform Midair Bobbing, they do it ''in unison''.

* As do both Starfire and Raven from ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans''. But mostly Starfire.

* In both ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}'', if the player character takes off in flight with the Wings of Wrath but stands still, he will bob slightly up and down. This effect is absent when you start moving in any direction.[[note]]This also applies to other id Tech 1 games being run on the [=ZDoom=] family of source ports, with the "fly" console command.[[/note]]

* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', the gravity thrones of the Prophets and Rtas 'Vadum (aka [[FanNickname Half-Jaw]]) both behave this way.

Objects and people that hover in the air will always, ''always'' bob up and down, as if floating on some invisible surface of water. This is typically because being perfectly motionless gives the unpleasant impression of being "stuck" in the air. The floating is often accompanied with a ''whoosh'' sound, for no other reason than the RuleOfCool.

* In animated cartoons, especially lower budget ones, midair bobbing [[RuleOfPerception serves the pragmatic purpose]] of establishing that a character or object is ''supposed'' to be in the air, and isn't just misaligned with the background.

* Luke Skywalker and the other X-Wing pilots do a good bit of this in ''StarWars''. It's only when they do a close-up cockpit shot of one of the X-Wing pilots. Everybody just kind of...bobs. Very odd, especially since the X-Wings themselves certainly aren't bobbing around in the longer shots. The speeders largely subvert this, however, in that they are completely motionless while idling, and often don't even react when someone is mounting/dismounting/operating them. (Aside from Luke's speeder in ANH, but that is mentioned on screen to be a bit of a cheapo/junker.)

* Some of the character from ''Franchise/{{Anpanman}}'' that fly would often bob up and down when hovering.

* In several ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'', cutscenes that feature Yu and Rei the ghosts have their sprites constantly in motion to indicate they're floating.

* Some of the character from ''Franchise/Anpanman'' that fly would often bob up and down when hovering.