Reusing animations in Blender

nmuta

So, waaay back in the day (10 years ago ) I used to use 3ds Max and Character Studio. For most animated creatures, I could use a biped, animate that biped, and then export that animation file to load onto another biped. 

Now I'm learning Blender, and I want to know what people do in Blender to get that same type of functionality.  For example, if I perfect a sitting down animation for one character, do I have to re-create the wheel for every single character ?  Please advice and please excuse the novice with Blender. I tried Googling this and searching these forums and I can't quite seem to find a direct answer on this.  I'm seeing stuff about Blender's "Pose Library" but not sure if this is what people are using and / or if this is the best tool for the job. 

derphouse

You can use an action(animation) from rig A to rig B, as long as the bone naming remains the same. This should give you the correct animations between the bones - so in local(bone) space.

Select your new rig, open the action editor, and find the action that you're looking for. There might obviously be some clean up to do here and there, but just make sure the relevant bones follow the same naming convention.

nmuta

Thank you ! 

nmuta

With that said, then are there libraries of common animations of characters that you can purchase or download ? If you name your bones the same way as others have done, then you could ideally import animations the same way that you can import mocap data from a biped in 3ds Max ? 

derphouse

I would suggest you take a look at Mixamo. They can provide animations as well as good auto-rigging solutions. That might be a time saver.