Pose for Shape Keys
Please consider implementing a shape key "pose" on objects, analogous to the pose for armatures.
Multiple instances of the same armature can be posed differently.
I would like to also pose the shape key values of multiple instances of the same mesh differently.
This should not just apply to mesh instances, other resources like curves and lattices also have shape keys. This should also work for them.
Implementing this would tremendously help videogame artists, and also Blenders importers & exporters, especially those relevant for gamedev (FBX).
I don't see any disadvantage to implementing this. This shouldn't break any previous blend files, as it would be a pure addition.
Unfortunately this can't be fixed with extensions.
Googling around, you'll find decades of posts from artists being unable to animate instances separately.
Please also consider identifying other properties on resources, that could be posed differently per instance.
4 Comments
you can already do what you want if you create your rig in a separate file and link in multiple instances of it. The current limitation is problematic but also I am not sure when we will get to fixing it
I can link the mesh from a separate file, but then the shape key values can't be changed at all, they are grayed out.
Using library overrides achieves that only kinda sorta, for all intents and purposes Blender now sees two separate meshes.
This is also how the exporters see it. Imported into a game engine, I now have two separate meshes, doubling VRAM use and slowing rendering.
by linking I implicitly meant library overrides.
The game engine setup is outside of Blenders control and you have to manage that yourself. Not sure what your workflow is but usually the animation stage doesn't export the mesh at all but just the animated skeleton, which you then hook up to the mesh instance in the engine. There are many options in this case.
Game engines can't magically deduplicate what Blender exports. This is exclusively in Blenders control.
This affects not just animations. I would like to set shape-key values of mesh-instances. This is what the post is about. Nothing to do with skeletons.
There are always some workarounds, all with their own limitations and varying levels of difficulty & error-proneness.
The point of this right-click-select post is to suggest a proper solution.