Lead-in
I just had a major scary moment. All morning, I worked and slaved over a walk cycle, getting the right foot movements nailed down, working the curves until they were as close to perfect as I could manage.
Then I took a break for lunch.
Ludicrousness
After lunch, I reopen the file. Somehow, part of the file path to the linked rig got repeated and now the file is buggered. The rig doesn’t show up, so all the animation curves are lying there wondering what happened.
Limbo
I tried ‘Find Missing Files,’ but it can’t.
I hacked the repeated part of the path name out, but that screwed up the DNA.
I shouted at the universe, "Why me?!? Have I not dedicated my entire life to this animation stuff?! Why do you keep spitting on me?!!??
But of course, the universe answered not.
Lightbulb
Then it occurred to me. Wayne Dixon said over and over again that I should save every animation as an action. And for once, I had.
So here’s what I did:
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started a new file
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appended the action from the broken file
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linked the rig in (and proxied it)
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and while having the rig selected, picked the action from the list in the Action Editor
And it all came back to life.
In order to pick up where I left off, I had to select all controllers and re-key each keyframe, but considering that I was facing starting over again from scratch, no big deal.