DirectX exporter: does the currently-selected action make a difference?

Question

Working in Blender 2.70, I've created a simple model (a box with a few loop cuts) with a simple armature (2 bones). I attached the mesh to the armature and created two animations (actions) and called them 'ArmatureAction' and 'walk'. With the 'ArmatureAction' active and the mesh and armature selected, I export the model.

Here are my export settings:

When I open up the .x file, I see two AnimationSets: both called 'ArmatureAction'. However, if I export with the 'walk' action active, I get two AnimationSets: 'ArmatureAction' followed by 'walk'. Edit: In this case, the ArmatureAction animationset is made up of 865 lines whereas the walk animationset is only 289 lines. The walk animation has fewer keyframes, but I thought that it exported every frame, regardless of whether it's a keyframe. In that case, the discrepancy might indicate an issue.

Does the currently selected action make a difference when exporting the file? I'm using Assimp to load these files into another piece of software and I'm having trouble getting the 'walk' animation to show up at all.

Answer 1

Short answer: Yes, it does matter.

Long answer: Yes, but not that much. Also, my file was broken for a different reason. The reason the walk action wasn't showing up in the exported file was that it was tied to the Cube mesh as well as a fake user. If the walk action had only one user (a fake one), then the "Attach Unused Actions to First Armature" option would have properly created this animation in the .x file and attached it to the Armature.

In my file, the walk action was not unused because it was tied to the mesh. The exporter created an animation for it and attached it to the mesh, not the Armature. This action took up fewer lines in the .x file because there were no keyframes on the mesh itself, so the exporter didn't export any.

The moral of the story:

• Make sure your actions all have fake users
• Make sure your actions don't have any extraneous users