True, you did once mention that you thought Essentials should have a "billowing dust" impact animation when you land after hopping over a ledge. That's... sort of related... maybe?
Nah, zooming will work just fine. Either that or switching between several differently-sized shadow graphics, in case zooming it makes it look weird (unlikely since it's so brief and semi-transparent). I'd tend to avoid animations (whatever that actually means) for this kind of thing, since the animation would be made separately and have to be matched up to the action, rather than having the action itself directly dictate what the shadow does.