Blender Action Editor Basics

[AnsonAdams]

God damn I had no idea you could organize your different animation channels. Thank you for sharing!

[TheCooper37]

Can you tell me how to loop a certain part of the actions, because you know that the frames moves on forever and ever and ever, so is there a way to limit the frame space to lets say 25 frames to use?

[MikeslyMontague]

The curves happening in the graph would always get on my nerves! I would always have to go to them, click on their line, and then press "S" + 0 to make it sharp, but now I know I can just press "A" + Shift + "T" > "Linear" to do it for me!

But can actual animations be looped from from the action editor, or is it just for adding to the Blender Game Engine? I have a lot of walking cycles in the animated shows that I'm making, and I can't just edit them in real-time, over and over again.

[MikeslyMontague]

@MikeslyMontague Oh, I found out! I have to mouse-over where all my bones are beside the keyframes, press "A" to select all of them, and then mouse-over all my keyframes beside the bones and then "A" to select all of them, Ctrl + "C" to copy all of them, and then Ctrl + "V" to paste the start of that chain of keyframes wherever my current frame is. I also noticed that the current frame acts as a "pivot point" for when you scale keyframes. (This is about to get a whole lot easier...)

[KAZZARTT]

Maybe you can help me, it's an easy one. 1. How do I delete an action on the action editor list? 2. How do swtich to see on the timeline and keyframes of one action if I have more than one. on Blender 2.5.something.

[XxArkhamxAsylumxX]

Can you save these animations and export them? Lets say for purposes of making a videogame for character movement and stuff like that?

[makeitchemical]

so it's necessary to have beginning and end keyframes for every bone, whether or not they move for the duration of the animation?

[bugzilla2001]

@makeitchemical Not necessarily, but it's good practice. For example, if you want to take these actions into the NLA editor, you will probably get unpredictable results if you don't have any keyframes at the start and end of your animation.

[makeitchemical]

thanks a ton, man. i've been losin my mind trying to figure out why new animations were messing up my old ones. i think this is the answer.

[TheWaynelds]

ok does this only work for armatures? I modeled a robot in blender, but since I'm a beginner, i composed him with many different objects and used spheres to create his joints ( basically just link his arms and legs to sphere joints with parent function so when i rotate the shoulder sphere, the whole arm rotates with it. same with fore arms and legs.

So is there any way I can use the action editor to animate him like that, or do i need to create an armature?

[TheWaynelds]

@TheWaynelds If you need an example of what I'm talking about, the robot is in one of my videos, "Red White and Waynelds" he's mostly at the end of the cartoon so skip to the last 2 minutes of it. let me know what you think, or if you can offer advice on a different way to animate him.

[bugzilla2001]

@TheWaynelds You can add the Armature modifier to several different objects, or join several objects into one and add the Armature modifier to it. For a robot you maybe better off just creating parent-child relationships for each part. Basically each piece would act as it's own bone. You can add the IK constraint to any object so you can animate the robot using the IK technique.

[TheWaynelds]

@bugzilla2001 Yeah, I was going to write back and say that I found the NLE very usefull and it's helping me do more complex animation with the robot with half the effort. I can copy and paste keyframes and work with them like i do with sony vegas pro. I tried joining the meshes into one object and setting up an armature, but it was deforming the object too much. I would say that I'm in the advanced noob stage at blender since i've only been 'really' using it for 5 months

[videofountain]

Hello.Thanks for the video.

I am using 2.5 Beta which may have action changes to the software.

I see you using bones at the top of chain of command.

In my case the chain of command are hooks controlling other items.

?

?Do actions apply for multiple object hooks controlling other objects. ?

?

[Technomari]

@bugzilla2001

Hey, I have a small problem, in one of my actions I transformed a mesh instead of the armature itself (this was in purpose to simulate a breathing animation) but I realize it's a mistake. I can't figure out how to delete the action and now it shows up when you play any other action

[Knexxuss]

Thanks for the video, really cleared things up.

[Tinak00777]

so dose all this stuff work for 2.49b or is the more add or w/e?

[XAutomatedOwnerX]

When i have the stuff selected it dosnt show on the side i dotn see anything

[bugzilla2001]

You really have to explain things better than this. Really. Take some time and think about what you are writing.

[XAutomatedOwnerX]

@bugzilla2001 Ok basicly ya know how you have like the bones on the side and different parts to add keys to to make animations? Like it shows all of the armatures. I dont have any of those when i have my armatures selected it dosnt show anything at all.

[XAutomatedOwnerX]

@bugzilla2001 Ok i figured it out nvm

[XAutomatedOwnerX]

@bugzilla2001 Well like umm In the action editor where it says all of the bones on your charatcer i dont see anything

[Littledude514]

How do I delete an animation, or delete a datablock? Like I did the walk cycle, but then I want to delete the it?

[Shoujoboy51]

Thanks! Seriously great video.

[agustinbs]

Very HELPUFULLY!!! Very well explained, clear and quick!

Thanks!

[yfm4450]

My problem is I create a new animation then my previous animation is disabled. Its still there, but when I go into game mode, it acts as if I deleted it and nothing happens. I named it and typed the name in the actuator but im guessing thats not the way to do it either. How can you have multiple action sequenced without running into this problem?

[Littledude514]

Make sure you put in the start and end frame in the actuator so Blender knows from what frame to what frame to play the action in the game engine. Hope that helps!

[Forcemaster2000]

Great description of how the action editor works! Thx!