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<DIV>Hello, developers,</DIV>
<DIV>I have a proposal, to make a very small addon to NLA editor, that is going
to be extremely useful, to my mind. </DIV>
<DIV>As you might know, some animators greatly lack "animation layers" in
Blender. NLA editor is supposed to resemble work with animation layers with
actions and poses. It has 4 modes: Replace, Add, Substract and Multiply. However
with these modes you cannot act in a classical "layer" way. That is, you cannot
position (rotate) a bone in NLATrack.001 situated above NLATrack (see .blend
file attached), and expect it to preserve this exact pose (from NLATrack.001)
over animation played in NLATrack. Because this very pose snaps from its
position according to calculations made by a chosen blend mode (Add, Miltiply or
Substract).</DIV>
<DIV>So my proposal is to make a kind of new "OFFSET" mode, that will make
calculations of a difference between NLATrack.001 and NLATrack and keep this
difference over the whole animation. So you will be able to insert exact poses
over existing animation. Moreover, it will be possible to change this pose
influence via "animated influence" menu (set Zero-keys, for example). And all
this will be what animation layers do exactly. </DIV>
<DIV>Sorry, if I do not understand NLA system workflow somehow, or if I am
repeating an old idea, or if this thread already exists somewhere. I looked
through animation feature requests and to-do lists and made some inquiries at
blenderartists.org - this seems to be an open question still. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>File .blend link:</DIV>
<DIV><A title=http://www.pasteall.org/blend/40964
href="http://www.pasteall.org/blend/40964">http://www.pasteall.org/blend/40964</A> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV>Anna</DIV>
<DIV>PS: Attached file has an NLATrack with animation. It has a "BalletPose" in
Poselib and this pose is inserted into NLATrack.001, placed over NLATrack in NLA
editor, with animated influence. I cannot set this exact pose in the beginning
of animation, because there is no such mode in NLA editor. It just starts to
calculate either Add, or Miltiply or Substract, which is not desired in this
case.</DIV>
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