Making the NLA useful

env · Post by **env** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:49 pm

Great, Harkyman! Can wait for it.

If you can hook me up with some clones anyway, though, I'd appreciate it.

I'm not a native English speaker, so what does this mean?

Env

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:02 pm

env wrote:
If you can hook me up with some clones anyway, though, I'd appreciate it.
I'm not a native English speaker, so what does this mean?

He's saying he'd like you to get the Harkyman's Clone (tm) business going

Martin

oin · Post by **oin** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:31 pm

Amazing, Harkyman.

Congratulations.

Blender will give a giant jump with it.

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:15 am

reposted from the appropriate thread at elYsiun:

pinBone success!

The feature works, at a basic level. I noticed a couple of unexpected behaviors that I have to track down, but let me tell you it's cool.

I'm not going to make an anim yet, because of the the small glitches, but here's what I did tonight:

1. made a walkcycle action.
2. made an action in which my character jumps from one (imaginary) platform to another, ending the action several units above and to the left of where it started.
3. Added into NLA: jump action, walk action, jump action, using pinBone on the left foot, then the right foot.
4. The resulting animation... oh hell. Here's what happens (click the image to see a brief animation):

That's right - the positioning of the armature picks up where the last one left off, at least in reference to the pinned bone. Remember- each action was designed individually, with no regard for armature positioning.

Yes, I know that the walkcycle's crap, and that the hands go weird at the end, but all in all, I'm a happy guy tonight.

oin · Post by **oin** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:57 am

Hey. I'd like to know certain detail..(maybe you already said it, but perhaps is my language barrier problem)

So, it means it can then, in a walk cycle, fix a bone to the floor, move the character picking the root bone, and the foot will stay glued at same point ?

Monkeyboi · Post by **Monkeyboi** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:20 pm

Wicked!!

But, how do you set the pinned bone in the UI? And is it possible to change which bone is pinned over time, for example per each Action Strip in the NLA?

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:55 pm

There's a new widget in the NLA info panel, where you put in the name of the bone you want to pin against. You can set a different bone (or not) for each different NLA strip.

oin: this is not a "world space pinning" feature. This is for easily aligning the animation between different NLA strips.

jesterKing · Post by **jesterKing** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:57 pm

Any chance to see a .diff for the code? I'd be very interested to look into it. Anyway, the avi looks great.

/jesterKing

birras · Post by **birras** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:00 pm

good news
oh yeah,btw...ideal would be to have some ipo-curves to adjust the blending of actions really fine,when needed ....but thats another story

about the clones: please make your choices:
Health: <0.00>
Intellect<0.00>
Coward<0.00>
Wealth <0.00>

JA-forreal · Post by **JA-forreal** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:08 am

Wow harkyman! It's looks like this one's a winner!

MacBlender · Post by **MacBlender** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:00 pm

Great work, this looks like it could be the precursor to an animanium style animation system. which in my mind would kick @$$.

think you might be able to pull it off?

MacBlender

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:33 am

Erm - not so much. Check out the latest post on the BlenderPeople development blog:

http://www.harkyman.com/bpblog/index.html

dgebel · Post by **dgebel** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:11 am

I gotta admit, I haven't been able to get a handle on the NLA in the time I've had to sit down with it. It looks cool, but confusing.

I hope this reworking clears a lot of stuff up. I'd love to see it integrated with the softbody and/or physics like some of the other tools seem to have.