How can I link the same character from another blend file 3 times and animate each one independently?

Question

Hi, all!

I found that if I create Proxy it animates all linked ones and additional proxies are ignored. As for library overrides it creates mess in the scene and I had to start from scratch :(. Is there any canon way to do this or I have to append instead of linking? Thanks! (I use 2.93.5 now).

Answer 1 · 2021-10-19T09:28:15Z

replied October 19, 2021 9:28am

Hey sslapin ,

@waylow may know of a way, I'm not so sure.

Maybe you can duplicate the character in the original file then link in each individual character.

Sorry I cant help further, I'm sure Wayne will help out as soon as he can.

Answer 2 · 2021-10-19T11:18:38Z

s

replied October 19, 2021 11:18am

I can't believe this simple use case was ont considered by developers, i.e. create army of knights having different animations... There should be something other than copying (or else it is easier to just append because linking is lost either way).

Answer 3 · 2021-10-19T22:36:25Z

Wayne Dixon replied October 19, 2021 10:36pm

Hi Slapin.

There are 2 ways of doing this.

Old Way (proxies):

Copy the blend file you want to link (Eg - My_rig.blend and My_rig_01.blend)

And then link in each copy separately.

(yes that is annoying but it used to be the only way)

New Way (Library Overrides):

Link in the asset. Then create a Library Override for it. If you have the file organised into collections (before the linking), this will create that same structure in your working file. Then you can just duplicate the whole linked collection as many times as you need.

(each copy will be appended with a .001 or .002 which really bugs me - but there's nothing I can do about that)

The key in both situations is to have your asset (rig) in a structured collection, then you link in that top level collection that pulls everything into your file.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4 · 2021-10-22T20:01:50Z

s

replied October 22, 2021 8:01pm

Thanks a lot for your help! Actually that is first Blender shortcoming I got into. I hope it will get resolved in one way or another.

The Library Override thing messes up the scene too much for me, so I go with proxies. I prefer clean naming in my scene without lots of mess which quickly turns to hell. If I have to copy then copy it is.