[Bf-committers] Fully qualified names for channels in actions?

[Nathan Vegdahl]

> In this scene you have three objects. Every object
> has it's own action and it works well. But for some animations it could
> be very useful to store that animation of all three objects in one
> action

This is an unfortunate limitation of Blender's animation system at the
moment.  As far as I know, there are not yet any plans to change this.
 But IIRC at the very least it won't be possible until after the
depgraph gets overhauled...?

I agree that it would be very useful to be able to do this, and that
there are circumstances where it is very frustrating to not be able to
do this. (e.g. a brick wall getting smashed would currently create
hundreds or thousands of individual actions--one per brick--which
would be a nightmare to manage, especially if you want to do clever
NLA stuff; and there are less extreme cases as well, such as a
character handling a prop.)

Blender currently hacks around this limitation primarily via the
armature system, where object-like-but-not-really-object bones can be
used for sophisticated multi-object-style animation.  But this only
works for a subset (albeit a large subset) of cases.

--Nathan


On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Tobias Oelgarte
<tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I guess you still did not quite understand me. Thats why i uploaded a
> little example [1]. In this scene you have three objects. Every object
> has it's own action and it works well. But for some animations it could
> be very useful to store that animation of all three objects in one
> action. Otherwise you will need 3 actions for 3 objects and that also
> inside the NLA. Combining the three actions seams to be is impossible.
>
> Would be nice that someone could use one action for multiple objects
> without the need of an armature, like in the second example [2], but
> without an armature.
>
> [1] http://www.pasteall.org/blend/8893
> [2] http://www.pasteall.org/blend/8894
>
> Am 19.09.2011 21:28, schrieb Jarred de Beer:
>> Perhaps it's not the most 'convenient' solution, but something you can do is
>> key the 'Delta Location' transform (find it in the objects panel).  It seems
>> to be like a layer on top of the 'Transform' data.  You can then place them
>> anywhere in world space and they'll move relative to that point.
>>
>> Hope it might help,
>> Jarred
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 7:37 PM, Tobias Oelgarte<
>> tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Thats not what i meant. I try to imagine a simple solution to animate
>>> multiple objects independently, while the location for each object will
>>> be stored inside the same action. This could be much easier as to parent
>>> the objects to the bones of an armature or to use the NLA with one
>>> action per object layered on top of each other.
>>>
>>> Bones have their own names and own channels inside an action. Real
>>> objects do only share the same channel, which does not allow for
>>> multiple objects inside one action.
>>>
>>> Am 19.09.2011 19:11, schrieb Tom Edwards:
>>>> You can add a constraint that forces one object to move with the other.
>>>>
>>>> On 19/09/2011 6:06, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:
>>>>> I just stumbled upon a simple task. I have two objects (a sphere and a
>>>>> cube for example) and i wanted to control their locations with _one_
>>>>> action. That simply isn't possible with one action alone, since both
>>>>> objects will share the location-channel (sitting on top of each other).
>>>>> Is there a way to store the location of two objects in one action or
>>>>> will i have to combine both actions with the NLA or the need to parent
>>>>> both to the bones of an armature?
>>>>>
>>>>> If it isn't possible, wouldn't it not make sense to (optionally) use
>>>>> something like fully qualified names in a way, that both locations could
>>>>> be stored inside the same action? I may be wrong, but i would find it
>>>>> useful for this properties.
>>>>>
>>>>> Greetings from
>>>>> Tobias Oelgarte
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-committers mailing list
>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>