NLA Tools (Custom Properties Baking and "Smart Bake")

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NLA Tools is an addon I created mainly for baking animations. It is supposed to bake IK FK custom properties (Rigify uses custom properties to drive the switching between IK and FK). It also has a “restrict bake” feature which limits the new baked keyframes to the existing ones from the NLA stack. I considered sharing this tool as I think it could be quite handy for some animators.
However, it is still highly experimental so be careful when using it in production.
Note : This addon can be obtained for free, just type 0 in the price field

Cannot post video demo here yet as I’m new, see the video at this link instead

It is supposed to adress the issue described here by RiggingDojo from 4:00 to 5:00 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH01CUIVx68

It highlights the fact that the default Blender bake doesn’t bake custom properties as pointed out in the report : https://developer.blender.org/T65773

Changelog :

  • 04/02/2022, 0.0.1 : Initial Release
    New Bake operator for baking custom properties
    New Fade operator to add quickly Animated Strip Influence (similar to VSE operator)
  • 05/02/2022, 0.0.2 :
    Fixes for Bake operator
    Added Blender 3.0.0 compatibility
4 Likes
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06/02/2022, 0.0.3:

  • New features for Bake operator :
    - Interpolation Step : spacing between keyframes during NLA Clip blending
    - Simplify : Apply a Decimate fcurve operator on baked fcurves. With Restrict Bake, only new keyframes will be affected, user inserted keyframes are ignored
  • Fade operator :
    - Renamed to Blend operator
    - Bugs fixes
  • Delete Locked Properties operator :
    - Delete fcurves from locked properties for selected NLA Clips
1 Like
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10/02/2022, 0.0.4 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Added Action Frame Extend support
    - Added Strip Repeat support
    - Added Fcurve Modifier Cycles support (only Repeat Motion, Repeat with Offset)
    - Added Fcurve Extrapolation support
1 Like
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13/02/2022, 0.0.5 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Bendy bones (bbones) support
  • Added X-Mirror NLA Strips operator
  • Added Link selected NLA strips action to active NLA strip action operator
2 Likes
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Got approved in Blender Market ! :blender_logo_64_png:

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13/02/2022, 1.0.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Animated Strip Time support
    - Reverse Strip support
  • Blend operator fix
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05/03/2022, 1.1.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Improved baking speed
    - Animated Strip Time fixes
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08/03/2022, 1.2.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Fcurve color fix
    - Overwrite Current Action fix
    - Custom properties arrays support
    - Bbones properties fixes
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10/03/2022, 1.2.1 :

  • Added Blender 3.1.0 compatibility
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15/03/2022, 1.3.0 :

  • Blender 3.1.0 compatibility fixes
  • Improved baking speed
  • Experimental operators on Blender Market version
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30/03/2022, 1.4.0 :

  • Bake operator
    - Visual Keying / Non Visual Keying
    - Bug fixes
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05/04/2022, 1.5.0 :

  • Blend operator :
    - Added option to add default NLA linear blending with shift click
  • Bake operator :
    - Basic support of meta strips
    - Bug fixes
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07/04/2022, 1.5.1 :

  • Extract Bones operator
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NLA official development is ongoing, some features of this addon may become redundant.

Links :
https://developer.blender.org/tag/animation_rigging/

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10/04/2022, 1.6.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Custom range values are now remembered
    - Restrict Bake can Bake in place
    - Faster bake for partial bake with the option Selected Bones Only
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Use case :

1 Like
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It seems the official development on the Blender Non Linear Animation Editor has resumed as the previous developer Wayde Moss working on the NLA seems to be back !
Regardless, I will still try to continue to provide tools regarding the Blender NLA Editor.
I forget to mention that the experimental operators from the Blender Market version are supposed to eventually go to the Gumroad “pay what you can” version.
Thanks to everyone who bought the addon on Blender Market and those who downloaded from Gumroad !

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15/04/2022, 1.7.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Bake on markers
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18/05/2022, 1.8.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Bug fixes
    - Bake on markers and Restrict Bake can be used at the same time
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11/06/2022, 1.9.0 :

  • Bake operator :
    - Bug fixes
    - Keyframe Type and Interpolation
    - Markers Bake simplified UI
2 Likes