Sorry for the noob question, but I am coming from animating in Maya. What is the point of Blender actions and the action editor?
I understand that keyframes and curves are contained within actions, but if I’m animating scenes for a film when would I need to have multiple actions? I’ve searched for a while now and I can’t find examples of when to use it and for what purpose.
Action are shareable data blocks. Data block mean that you can store it in the file without users.(objects that use it).
And if you want to mix them. You can use the NLA editor… a kind of animation layers …
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For the most part it’s been useful in games for me, storing multiple animations on a single rig.
In my experience in short films, it comes in handy with collaborations. Two animators can animate the same rig for different shots in separate blend files, then I can append the two actions together in the NLA editor.
It’s also useful for storing looping actions when you want to instance multiple characters with similar rigs, like a crowd, or basic reusable character actions, like walk cycles.
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Ahhh ok, I can see how that could help with pipeline flow, thank you.
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