export into shockwave with animations?

[waterpearl]

Hello;

this is my problem: when I export my character that I made in Lightwave into Shockwave 3D his limbs are all over the place although my weight maps are set up correctly (as far as I know). That is if i export it without the animations (which would only be the frame 0). If, on the other hand, i export the same character WITH animations checked he looks fine in Shockwave.

Question 1: do you have to export animations although a character is not moving just to make the weight maps work?
Question 2: does this increase the file size dramatically?

Thank you for your suggestions.

Katja

[MentalFish]

It sounds strange, but it might have something to do with the bonesPlayer (modifier) not being applied when the animation is not exported.

For bones to work correctly inside of ShockWave/Director (even if they are not supposed to be animated), they need to have the bonesPlayer applied. I would recommend to export only the first frame of your animation, and check on the export animation again. Then you will have the bonesPlayer applied but no movement applied to the model.

[waterpearl]

thanks, patterms.

I figured out that if I include the first keyframe when i export the animation the character looks fine and the file size does not increase that much. I might just go with that for now; at least it works.

You mentioned the bonesplayer that needs to be applied to the bones. I guess this happens during the export into shockwave if you have the animations option checked? I know you need to do that once you are in Director.

I'll keep tinkering with it. Thanks for your reply.

Katja

[MentalFish]

Yes, I think it is only applied if you check on the export animation tag.

[mdoyle]

I have also found to keep size down in the past, is to create one w3d with the character and bones stationary with animation box checked (with no animation) then afterwards when exporting, only export animation and scene structure for seperate anaimations to save you exporting the model if the character is using different animations. When its over the web for download it can save you download as much