Learning Blender: A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D Animated Characters

Creating an Action

The walking animation will be a cycle, meaning that you’ll only be animating one step (it happens in place, so the character won’t move across space; that will happen later), which will then be repeated over time. As you’ll be repeating it using the NLA Editor, you need to create an action that you can load later.

Each object has different actions, so make sure you have the rig selected in Pose Mode before you create an action. If you are in Object Mode, selecting the rig will create an action for the container, not for the individual bones that you need.

Open the Dope Sheet Editor and switch to the Action Editor Mode. On the header, if you haven’t animated anything, there will be a field in which you’ll be able to create a ...