Hi, i’m working on a 1shot short film were some eight legged bugs has various actions as eat, walk, run, been attacked… etc. NLA tools seems a cool tool and will speed-up a lot the process, but i’m worried about how i could re-use actions from bug to bug (most of them will be equal) and how not to die in the process of animating 5 eight legged bugs in one shot.
at current moment i’m on modelling and materials stage, and i’m reading all tutorials i find about armatures but i haven’t found anything about multiple character animation… must i redo all the walk cycle work for each bug?
You can build the armature for your first bug, then animate it. Then select both the armature and mesh and duplicate them with SHIFT D.
This next part is very important if you don’t want each new bug to be animated in the exact same location and manner as the original.
Immediatley, open the EDIT buttons for your new armature. You need to make this armature seperate from the original, as it will have the same name (Armature if you haven’t renamed it) and be highlighted in Blue.
Make the new armature a single user, then enter EDIT mode (press TAB key). Press the A key to select all bones in the armature, the names will then be displayed in the EDIT buttons window. Change the names of each bone (easiest if you add a number after each name ie- spine becomes spine1 etc).
Exit edit mode for the Armature and select the new mesh, enter EDIT mode, then change the vertex weight group names to match your new bones names.
For ease of use with many multiple armatures, animate the legs for the first bug, then duplicate the armature and mesh as required for the number of bugs you need as above. Then when finished duplicating, animate the armatures individually as whole objects (IE not in edit or pose mode). The leg animation you did previously will be retained by each new armature.