Im trying to learn some basic animation skills to solve urgent problems I found while developing and testing stuff in Unity (Im not an artist at all), and I found a problem while using actions. When I create a new action, it is created with the animation from the previous one and I havent found any way to reset it to neutral position. Also, changing the max frame number in one action, changes all actions.
I generate the model with MakeHuman, and it uses the Game engine armature, to create actions I click the F button, then X button, and then New.
How can I reset the new action animation info and keep the frame count independent?
This is normal, when you create a new action. blender creates a duplicate of the current action. Just delete all the key frames in the dopesheet, reset all the bones loc/rot/scale and you are ready to create a new action.
Also, changing the max frame number in one action, changes all actions.
I generate the model with MakeHuman, and it uses the Game engine armature, to create actions I click the F button, then X button, and then New.
How can I reset the new action animation info and keep the frame count independent?
The start frame and end frame numbers are found in the timeline editor. So it’s for the current file, it’s not related to the current action. You have to change it for each action you work on, if you just want to see that action from to start to end. Say you have 2 actions, one is 50 frames long the other is 100 frames long. When working on the 50 frame action, set the end frame to 50. Working on the 100 frame animation, set the end frame to 100.
I’m not a game engine person, but I assume you would want to set the end frame to the last frame of the longest action you have, then export. On export, I would assume that each action is only exported to the last key frame in that action. So in my example, set end frame to 100 and it would export one action that is 50 frames long and one action that is 100 frames long. But that’s just me taking a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) at this part…
Randy
Would something like this help? im working on a similar project, where a bunch of actions and loading one by one is bad, so Im getting an script ready to manage them.
It displays all actions easily on a list that can have a filter for the name, assigns different ranges for each action and applies them on load. For safety it also sets animations with a fake user so I dont loose them. much easier to use than going by the action editor/dopesheet thing.