Animation Exporter

Animation Export

The Avastar Animation exporter exports skeletal animations of the Avastar Armature. We support 2 export Modes (anim and BVH).

Note: The Exporter is only available when you have selected an Avastar Armature as the active Object.

The Animation Export Panel is located in the Render Properties Section  (see navigation map by hovering the mouse over the zoomglass above). You need to scroll down to the bottom of the section indicated.

• fps: (Frames Per Sec).
• Start Frame: First frame to export.
• End Frame: Last frame to be export.
• Synchronize: keep the options here permanently synchronized with the same options in the Timeline.

The bottom of this section shows the calculated runtime of the animation. You can expect your animation to run that long when you later play it in your target system.

Note: When you have not selected the Synchronize option, then you still can click the little auto icon between Start frame and End frame to synchronize on demand.

• Ease in: Time in seconds until the character will be reposed from the character’s current pose to the first pose in the Start Frame.
• Ease Out: Time in secs until the character will be reposed from the End Frame to the character’s previous pose.
• Priority: [-1, 0 … 6] Animation priorities (1)
• Compression: [0.0 … 1.0] Amount of compression calculated by the Exporter (0 means no compression)

 

• Loop Animation (checkmark): if checked, the animation will later run in an infinite loop. If unchecked, the animation terminates after running once.
• In: First frame of loop (can be anywhere in the animation)
• Out: Last frame of loop (needs to be right from the In location)

Note: Last Frame and First frame can be the same for a pose (static animation).

• name: name of the animation. This is actually a name template. It contains a string plus optional variables, see below. Default value is $action (the exported file will be named like the action name.
• Apply Armature Scale: You need this option when you are working with scaled models in Blender. In that case normal animations might not work as expected on your scaled model when they are later played in SL. This option actually scales the animation together with the model.

• With Bone translation: While rotation animation is always exported, the export of translation is optional. You will need to check this if you have enabled the option anim bone trans or vol bone trans in the Posing panel. You will keep this unchecked when you want to ensure that your animation does not contain any translation.
• Export Animation: Clicking this button will open a file selection box and after you have specified the name of the export file (pre-filled with the template from the name field), the data is exported to disk.

Allowed variable names in the action name string:

• $action Name of current action (String)
• $avatar name of the Armature (String)
• $fps Frames per Second (number)
• $start Start frame (number)
• $end End frame (number)
• $prio Animation priority
• $easein Ease In (Seconds)
• $easeout Ease out (Seconds)
• $loopin Start of Loop (frame number)
• $loopout End of Loop (frame number)
• $runtime Length of animation in seconds

• fps: (Frames Per Sec).
• Start Frame: First frame to export.
• End Frame: Last frame to be export.
• Synchronize: keep the options here permanently synchronized with the same options in the Timeline.

The bottom of this section shows the calculated runtime of the animation. You can expect your animation to run that long when you later play it in your target system.

Note: When you have not selected the Synchronize option, then you still can click the little auto icon between Start frame and End frame to synchronize on demand.

• Add reference Frame⁽¹⁾: Add the Reference Frame as initial frame
• With Bone Lock: Keep bones in animation even when not animated

⁽¹⁾: Prepend reference: Automatically add the Reference Frame as initial frame (the reference frame is needed by the animation system of SL, OpenSim and other compatible worlds)

 

• name: name of the animation. This is actually a name template. It contains a string plus optional variables, see below. Default value is $action (the exported file will be named like the action name.
• Apply Armature Scale: You need this option when you are working with scaled models in Blender. In that case normal animations might not work as expected on your scaled model when they are later played in SL. This option actually scales the animation together with the model.

• With Bone translation: While rotation animation is always exported, the export of translation is optional. You must check this if you have enabled the option anim bone trans or vol bone trans in the Posing panel. You keep this unchecked when you want to ensure that your animation does not contain any translation.
• Export Animation Button: Clicking this button will open a file selection box and after you have specified the name of the export file, the data is exported to disk. If the button is marked red, then something prevents Avastar from exporting. In that case a short explanation appears on the Button.

Allowed variable names in the action name string:

• $action Name of current action (String)
• $avatar name of the Armature (String)
• $fps Frames per Second (number)
• $start Start frame (number)
• $end End frame (number)
• $prio Animation priority
• $easein Ease In (Seconds)
• $easeout Ease out (Seconds)
• $loopin Start of Loop (frame number)
• $loopout End of Loop (frame number)
• $runtime Length of animation in seconds

During upload of a bvh file to your online world you can specify animation loops. The in and Out locations need to be specified in %.

We have added a loop % calculator. Just enter the in frame and the Out frame. Avastar will calculate the percentage values as you need them later for the SL animation importer.

Bulk Export: Export multiple Actions into separate animation files. Bulk export is only available when you have more than one action defined.

When you enable Bulk Export, then you get an additional list of available actions. You can select All actions or you can select exactly which actions you want to export from the set.

In any case each exported action will be exported into its own animation file.

You can set the priority for each bone separately. You find the setting in the Pose Bone properties editor:

Bone Section -> Custom properties -> Priority

By default this is set to -2 for each bone (see image)