NLA editor, I can't get two baked animations to work at the same time

Question

I have two animations that are baked one on top of the other. How do I get both to `work at the same time? One is a walk cycle and the other is a simple movement forward for the walk cycle. I have chosen both baked animations at the same time and get the same result. I'm fairly new with nla editor, but I have done some research and only found examples that have baked animations beside each other, but not stacked.

Do animations need to be baked for a final render? If not I think I will use them rarely.

Also too does anyone know of any well explained videos of animations using dope sheet and nla editor. I would like it to include; how to render and save a completed animation, just as if I wanted to save it and play it on windows media player? If you would only like to answer the first paragraph that is totally fine.

I am now writing later in the after noon. I don't seem to be able to go into tweaking strip actions mode. When I try it says I have no active strips to enter tweak mode. Well as far as I know if the strip is yellow it is selected. I don't know why I would even want to bake a strip. I am not able to see any other animation when working with a baked strip.

Answer 1

In your NLA-Editor's properties panel (on the right); if you select your "movement" action, you can see the Blending mode. In the screenshot you provided it is set to Replace. Replace tells blender that any other tracks' keys on the same channel that are below it are overridden by the top track. You can set this to another type, for instance Add to add the location of the movement-action to the values in the idle-action.

A better way (in my opinion) would be to pay attention that the channels of your actions do not unnecessarily overlap. That means that your walk-cycle should not have keys for body-movement, and your movement-action has only keys for body-movement. If you have that you will have more flexibility in arranging the tracks later on. (In case that you design your walk-cycle by selecting all bones of your armature, and then do "insert key frame", then you will end up with a key in every possible channel, making it very hard to handle in the NLA-Editor. Better remove the unnecessary channel in the action editor then). For example, for a walk-cycle, i would only animate the up/down movements of an in-place walk cycle in one action, and make a different action for movement that effects only the x-direction of the root-bone of my armature, but nothing else.

Baking is mostly not needed for animations, as long as you have enough channels (and bones) to realize your animation. Sometimes, however, when a rig is too simple to support overlaying actions well, it might be necessary.