Enhancement Request: Object-specific animation loading.

[Tetrino]

I tried to add this myself but I'm frankly still crap at Python. Hoping it's not too bad a job...

As expected by me - and correct for the code as written - you cannot import multiple animations into one scene if there are more than one rigs available.

So, for example (it's me, so Stellaris):

• I have in my scene a space whale and an elder dragon, with associated rigs imported.
• I import the idle animation for the space whale, applies correctly as expected
• I then import the idle animation for the elder dragon and receive the expected runtime error generated here:

https://github.com/ross-g/io_pdx_mesh/blob/7b41ef0a791ad5675ba6c266993bcd851541a0f4/pdx_blender/blender_import_export.py#L1344

My request is that this area of code is changed such that it attempts to apply to the current actively selected rig/armature (if any) before searching the whole scene for them. I'm a realist so not asking for any kind of UI for it, documented functionality would do plenty!

Thus my workflow would be:

• I have in my scene a space whale and an elder dragon, with associated rigs imported.
• I import the idle animation for the space whale, applies correctly as expected
• I then select the rig for the elder dragon
• I import the idle animation for the elder dragon and it applies to the selected rig

I'm working around it right now by scene linking (applying the animation separately and importing them to the scene I need them to be). Functionally I don't think there is any direct limitation for this, just searching the selection before scene in get_rig_from_bone?

https://github.com/ross-g/io_pdx_mesh/blob/7b41ef0a791ad5675ba6c266993bcd851541a0f4/pdx_blender/blender_import_export.py#L92

I figure if someone tries to apply the wrong animation to the wrong rig they should expect busted behaviour. Don't need to error check it too much.

Thanks Ross!

[Tetrino]

Huh, I worked it out pretty quickly once I had the right headspace and reference. I've submitted a PR against the bugfix branch (which is what I was using) for your consideration. https://github.com/ross-g/io_pdx_mesh/pull/29

Cheers.

[ElTyranos]

Hey Tetrino,

This is unrelated but I can't mention you. Over there.

I'm working on CK3, I have no python background so I'm barely able to read the exporter. Maybe you could find the culprit "easily" on #16 ?

Regards, El Tyranos

[Tetrino]

I'm afraid not without trying to import myself, and I don't own CK3, sorry.

[ross-g]

Hey @Tetrino, this sounds like a good improvement 😄 but might need a bit more work to support multiple assets in a single scene like you've described.

For example - you mention working in a single scene with the space whale and the dragon from Stellaris. Currently you can't actually import both of those assets into a Blender scene correctly because the second import will try to use the "io_pdx_rig" that already exists in the scene... and so will fail in other places because the expect bones don't exist. This is all solvable of course (!) with a bit more thought about how it should work and throwing out the current assumptions about 1 asset per scene.

Thanks for the PR for this, I'll take a proper look during the week though I am inclined to say that the "apply anim to selected" behaviour should be an explicit option in the import UI. Which is easy enough to add. I'm a little unwilling to just take the PR directly as it would break feature parity between Maya and Blender... and it took me quite a lot of work to get to that point in the first place. But it's not a difficult thing to implement, so I am sure I can get this in for the next release.

[Tetrino]

Hey @ross-g, happy new year!

If I'm honest I hadn't considered importing into the same scene, as my workflow (like many) involves handling each asset in its own file and dynamic linking. That's on me! I also agree it would need feature parity with Maya and I figured that ultimately the PR would be used as a basis for what I mean rather than pulled in directly.

I also agree it should be an explicit option in the UI. Admittedly what I supplied was more my workaround hack to meet my needs at the time.

If I may make a suggestion, perhaps a way to differentiate each rig would be to name the rig after the file it's imported from (after sanity checking the string), with a numbered iterator in cases where users import multiples of the same file (e.g. importing spider.mesh twice will give spider_rig and spider_rig_2)? Would keep things nice and clear for the user.

Please do what you think is best and it's almost certainly not an urgent requirement! I did manage to do exactly what I needed for this myself, however, and future things coming.