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I can find and access an action in the NLA editor but I can not find it in the Action Editor. My goal is to use the action in another file via linking but don't know how to.

The animation is basically keyed UV positions using AnimAll addon. Just a simple scrolling of UV's along X pos.

The first fishy thing is that I never could find it in the action editor, but I did use the dope sheet and graph editor on the keys.

In the NLA editor, the track shows up under the object's name (but I suspect the action is stored under the object's DATA, not the object directly, in this case?)

So I used the "Push Down" Arrows to use the action track, scale and repeat it as I wanted.

But when linking the whole mesh parented to an armature, as a group link (I also proxied the armature in the final file), the action is unsurprisingly invisible, and the NLA track is not showing the action too. I appended the action separately too.

If was able to add my object into the NLA editor, but it still isn't possible to access its NLA animation using shift+A in the NLA Editor... There's an error I don't know how to work around. This is what it looks like in the outliner

It exists in the outliner... I just can not find it in any other window

When I try to use the Action editor, I just can not find it. (This is the final file with linked/appended action from source mesh/object)

And Finally, this is the closest I've gotten to accessing it in the final file.

This could possibly be a question completely about linking and appending, and also armatures and groups. Even though it's about an animation on a mesh's UV data... Sorry, I just don't know what's causing the issue..

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  • $\begingroup$ Going by the icon, "Male Character " is an empty (prob a group instance). I would say your action has datapaths that are relative to a mesh object, and even if you could add it to the empty object, via the NLA wouldn't work. btw IIRC the action editor is purely for object animations. $\endgroup$ – batFINGER Mar 26 '18 at 11:00
  • $\begingroup$ It IS a group instance. And I just tried completely appending the whole group instead of linking, and this time the animation comes along, and works with the NLA editor. But this isn't what I wanted ;~; I still have changes I want to make to the character later on, adding some more bones and mesh to the armature and stuff... But it'll have to do for now. So you're saying it's impossible as a linked group instance? sad... $\endgroup$ – Dragoonstorm1 Mar 26 '18 at 11:38
  • $\begingroup$ Not sure on whether it's impossible. Might be doable with a proxy of some sort. (not something I've done much of) . Would make a good question. $\endgroup$ – batFINGER Mar 26 '18 at 11:46
  • $\begingroup$ The thing is, that I have a feeling that " stashed " actions can be transferred when linked. My problem here is I have no idea where the action is, i.e: can't find it in Action editor, even on my original file, the character's file. Maybe NLA editor strip isn't intended to be linked... But actions are. As I understand it... It's just that I can't find this action hahaha $\endgroup$ – Dragoonstorm1 Mar 26 '18 at 13:12
  • $\begingroup$ All actions are in the bpy.data.actions collection. Can look at outliner in datablock mode, or in python console D.actions['<ctrl-space> to auto-complete. Actions will be lost if they have zero users on file save / reopen. The action editor only shows object level actions, not mesh level actions which yours is (going by outliner it is under the mesh type object) $\endgroup$ – batFINGER Mar 26 '18 at 13:16

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