Hello!
2 questions about the NLA editor – I am quite new to using it!
QUESTION 1:
I created a quadruped cartoon monster.
The FRONT legs walk cycle’s ‘down’ frame tilts the spine of the quadruped downward at the FRONT.
The BACK legs walk cycle’s ‘down’ frame tilts the spine of the quadruped downward at the BACK.
Trouble is, when they are both on the timeline, only the uppermost layer influences the spine (which they both try to move) – how can I get the NLA editor to mix the influence on the spine rather than just choosing one over the other?
QUESTION 2:
Because the quadruped’s front and back feet are so huge they very easily intersect each other in a walk cycle.
I decided to animate the front legs as one action and the back legs as another action, both on 16s (where frame one is the same as what would be frame 17 – I think I got the terminology right!).
I did them on 2 separate actions so that I could try out different offsets of their start frames to find the best way for the feet to occupy the space over time without intersecting each other. After a few attempts I found that starting the front legs on their frame 1 and starting the back legs on their frame 5 is the best use of space and no intersection.
So seeing as the back legs NLA strip starts on its own frame 5 (Which is in turn on the NLA timeline’s frame 1), I thought it would be nice if I could then repeat (loop) the strip to make up the gap at the end as seen in my text diagram below:
BACK LEGS:
05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16, ? , ? , ? , ?
FRONT LEGS
01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16
However I soon found that the repeat function in the NLA editor will actually repeat the offset start frame, so every repeat starts on frame 5!! This means I get jmuping as follows:
BACK LEGS
05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16- 05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16, etc
Is there a way simply repeat a strip where the repeats start on frame their 1 even though the starting original starts on its frame 5? I solved it by duplicating the strip, but I could see how this could get tedious on many repeats cases even with meta strips.
Many thanks!