My character gets deformed with animation

Hey everyone!


I recently kicked off an amateur personal project with Blender, just to learn and get into the world of 3D animation and videogames.

I already learned how to model and rig (with rigify) a character, and I thought I knew how to animate too until I came across these 2 problems:

  1. I made 5 different animations (called Hop1 to Hop5) in which a monkey (the character I modelled) jumps in different ways. The thing is that when I play them one by one, all of them look the same -just like Hop2, although the Dope sheet shows different frames in each one. I tried to fix it making some changes in the other animations, but I think that the problem is that none of them are able to be seen but Hop2.
  2. When I select animations Hop4 and Hop5 the figure of the character gets deformed and it's no longet put back in the correct posture, even if I turn back to the other animations.

I returned to my project after Christmas holidays so Blender has been off for a few weeks. I say this in case it's part of the problem besauce I'm not sure. Any idea?


Thank you in advance!

LA.


  • Ronald Vermeij(indigowarrior9) replied

    Hello LA
    I'm not an expert (yet) in animation, but I can offer you some (computer-related) tips which can help you:

    TIP - Divide and Conquer: -> Make a different BLENDER field for each hop-animation.
    - Start with 1 basis (root) Blender file which contains the entire character, model, rigging, textures.
    - Create X exact copies from this root file, each for every hop-animation
    - Work out the different animation in the different copies of the file
    This keeps this light, easier to handle and less complex for you to oversee.

    WHY?
    When a  (copy) file crashes, you can always go back to the (unmodified!) rootfile, make a copy from it,
    and start all over again, while you still have the other copy-files (containing the other animations) intact.


    TIP - Always have multiple (timelined) backup(s):

    -Start with a blender file and [save it as] V1.blend.. like monkey_hop1_v1.blend 
    -Work for a while then save it again with a new version number............. like monkey_hop1_v2.blend 

    WHY?
    If somethings goes wrong this your current file (and it will) you can always go back one file and continue
    with your work from the previous saved file.

  • Mark Smith(me1958424) replied

    it's my understanding that each animation needs to occupy a different place on the timeline...

    for instance hop1 is from keyframe 0 - 25

    then hop2 is from frame 26 - 50... and so on...

    it looks to me as if they are all stacked on top of each other...

    hope this helps...

  • lewisluisao replied

    Thanks a lot!

    I found a tutorial which said the same. That wasn't the problem but even so it's been very usefull.

  • lewisluisao replied

    It makes sense!

    Anyway, I'm trying to delete the animations to leave one in each blender file but I don't know how. With the option "remove animation" all it does is remove the animation from de figure, but it doesn't delete it.

  • Dolores 74 (dolores74) replied

    ‘I made 5 different animations (called Hop1 to Hop5)’

    How did you organize those animations ?

    You can have as many animations as you want on an object but you have to assign a separated action to them and organize those actions in the NLA editor.

    If your character is jumping up one time and doing a walk cycle the other time, you make an action for the jump, an action for the walk and in the NLA editor you can organize those actions so it jumps, walks, jumps, walks jumps, walks ... 

    So, how did you organize those animations ?

    To delete an animation from an object you select that object in the 'Outliner', expand the object's directory by clicking the little ‘+’ sign in front of it. Right click on ‘Animation’ and select ‘Clear Animation Data’. In the action editor a ‘0’ will appear in front of this action and this action will be gone, next time you open Blender. Or unlink the action from the object in the action editor itself by clicking the 'x'.

    It would be a help if you could post the file so I can see what you are talking about and what you have done.

  • lewisluisao replied

    Thank you for replying!

    There goues de Google Drive link to download the Blender File:

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jkZ1DPZgTK8_ptbOFXym1R1_tfjXlKbE

    Excuse if it's a disaster, I'm a complete beginner.

    Meanwhile I'll try to do waht you suggested me.

  • Dolores 74 (dolores74) replied

    You have muted all tracks in the NLA editor, so I unmuted all.

    Playing back the animation, your dude jumps. What do I have to look for what your question is of this topic. I see no deformation of your charachter..

  • lewisluisao replied

    I already solved the problem of the deformation. Thank you!