Blender- Animation with different accessories + Action editor

[Kinrove]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering how do you manage the animations when there are potentially several accessories being used by the character ?

e.g : The worker has a hammer, an axe and a pickaxe.

- 1) Is there a simple way to do toggle the visibility of each accessory when edited and do the export of the animation ?

This way, I have one animation and I just change the accessory according what I want to export (Walking_axe.g3d, Walkind_pickage.g3d).

-2) I'd like to delete some animations within the action editor, but it seems that even though I press the "x" next to the name of the animation, the action remains, even after a restart... (the  F button next to it is disabled as well). Any idea on the way to deal with it ?

Regards,

[-Archmage-]

1) As far as I know, the G3D exporter only exports what you have selected, simply don't select the tools you don't want. For an easier time in the viewport, disable the items in the Outliner, or put them on different layers.

2) Welcome to one of Blender's most terrible features. If an action is "used" by anything it cannot be deleted no matter what. Check the NLA Editor, often Blender will automatically create an NLA strip for your action that will "use" the action. The objects you're animating can also 'use' actions, so make sure all of your meshes are set to some non-consequential action. Additionally, that little number next to the 'F' is the number of users. Once you get that to 0, press the 'X' and then you have to save and restart Blender.

Have fun! 

[Kinrove]

Ok thank you for your answers, I've figured out that indeed the exporter exports only the selection.

But for easiness what I would like to do is that :

Imagine I have a walk cycle animation done for the worker.

I'd like to use the same walk cycle animation when he moves to cut some woods or for mining BUT with the tool added in his hand.
Is there a way to simply manage it ?

Here for the tests I've done so far, I added the tool after the animation was done, but It's a bit dirty and cumbersome to manage.
I'm pretty sure there is an easier way to manage that but I haven't found yet.

If you have an idea, please share it !!!! 

Unless I could parent the tools to the hands and not select them when I export... I might give a try....

[-Archmage-]

I would just duplicate the walking action for each tool and make a couple changes to make it look like the character is holding something. Then just parent the weapon/tool to the hand bone as you said.

[Kinrove]

Thank you for the advice.

Finally, I did the walk cycle animation with all the tools (pickaxe and axe) attached to the hands at the same time.
Then I detached all the tools and when exporting I just selected what I needed.

E.G :  walking_mining (I selected the pickaxe and the character).

I noted that if ever we want, we can add the tool later by using the "child of" constraint and then select the bone which is the parent.
That way the tool follows as well the animation of the parent bone.

[-Archmage-]

I came across a way to delete actions easily. In the outliner panel, set the display type to 'Blender File'(it's default is 'All Scenes'), then open the action tree and you can right-click -> delete on individual actions.

I also recommend learning how to use IK constraints, they make humanoids vastly easier to animate.

[Kinrove]

I agree, that's a quick way to fix it, thank you.