I watched a tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsi1e1eQUtE He shows how he combines two actions to make one. I can manage to fade in and out of actions, but when I duplicated the jump action and put it over the spin action, I got terrible results. I wanted the robot to jump while spinning around. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Blend file
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/24347
It seems to me, superficially, that the strips (in the NLA window) are now set to “Replace” the influence of other strips (instead of, say, “Add”), and also that the strips themselves were not each defined from the same “neutral” starting position and frame.
Ultimately, each “Action” is: “a named set of IPO-curves, all of which must either be ‘Apples’ or ‘Oranges.’” That is to say, “when you ask the NLA-system to <<add | replace | subtract | multiply>> them together, the end-result must make sense.”
Be sure that you’ve defined each action, starting with “frame #1,” where the rig is in a Neutral pose. Be sure that each Bone that you alter is only being altered to move the Neutral rig in response to this particular Action. Don’t specify changes to any variable if the Action does not require it to be changed. (If you find that this isn’t the case, you can fix things in “Tweak mode.”)
This way, you can be sure that your “Action definition” is truly generic: that it really can be “applied anywhere at anytime,” which of course is exactly what the NLA-editor intends to do. It must: (a) influence only the variables that it needs to; (b) influence them relative to a “common, neutral, starting-position,” and © start at a common Y-position, “zero.”
When all of these “minor issues” 
have been covered, then it will “lead to a sensible result” for <<this strip>>, at <<any>> particular frame-number, to be (for all of its “included variables” at once …) <<added | replaced | subtracted | multiplied>> to ‘the status quo.’ "
Since (heh…) that is what The Computer is ultimately doing, that is what you must be sure to provide.
I know I did start the action of the spin at something like frame 2600 because the existing action (the clapping action) was interfering with it. I realized I could temporarily move the clapping action over to the right. I forget if this was my latest attempt shown here. The Add - Replace comment you made above could also be my problem. I know I heard something about that in the tutorial cited above. I’ll have to go back to the drawing board and see if I can’t fix this with the new information you just offered. (tomorrow) Thanks.
Yup… and (tomorrow, heh…) betcha you will find that you can easily fix-it with a simple “grab.”
Notice that, in the tutorial (and perhaps without mentioning it …) the author started from the same “starting position” when defining each Action. In this way, (s)he created, in each Action, a “comparable set” of IPO-curves. In other words: “each of these ‘things’ start at the same square-one, and define only isolated changes relative to that same square-one.” …
… So that, when a stupid-computer (of course not knowing any better), ‘combines’ these two things (combine = replace or add or subtract or multiply … them’s your (only) choices), the end-result “looks great!” to a Human."
“Sh-h-h-h-h-h…!!!” This “marvelous machine” that we use to create our “Movie Magic” is actually … as dumb as toast. Bright-line rules, ones and zeros, and absolutely nothing in-between. When we know this, and so adroitly cover-for these “digital insufficiencies,” heh… yeah, it sure do look like ‘Magic.’ :rolleyes:
But, until then … (shhh!! don’t tell anybody!!) … it sure do look like “digital nonsense.” :yes:
In the dope editor, I moved the spin action so it started at frame one. Then in the NLA editor I changed all the actions to add (thinking that’s what you said I should do). I got very bad results. For the spin action, I selected all the bones and then rotated them on the z axis. Then in the graph editor I changed the frame extrapolation to linear. (shift E) That’s what he did in the tutorial more or less.
What do you mean by this?
Be sure that each Bone that you alter is only being altered to move the Neutral rig in response to this particular Action. Don’t specify changes to any variable if the Action does not require it to be changed.
Do you mean I can’t select all the bones when I rotate the robot for the spin action?
The online manual wasn’t much help.
This is when I tried to follow what you suggested:
I’m thinking of adding a new action, the robot jumping and rotating, instead of trying to combine two actions. But I did want to learn how to combine two actions in the NLA editor.
Blend file: http://s1130.photobucket.com/user/Blanco111/media/Works%20in%20Progress/help42_zps9c0abe3a.jpg.html
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/24355