How can I export these animations into another program? I don't need the rig itself in these other programs, I just need the mesh's animations to be exported, if that makes sense. Is this possible, like, with alembic? If it's not possible, do I have to make a 100% bone based rig?
2 Answers
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rig it in blender then in the modifier tab of the properties window duplicate the armature modifier and apply as shape key you should only do this at the end once youre sure you have youre mesh the way you want it cause shape keys can be wierd
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Alembic is a nice solution, it can export mesh data "as is visually", like a mesh cache. However it can be quite heavy because it exports a snapshot of the mesh on each exported frame. And it doesn't support materials (though it can export material face groups).
Depending the target software, Alembic is the best solution, but sometimes it's not as ideal. Typically, if it's for a game engine, you better stick to a bone-shapekey-based rig and keep it as lightweight as possible.
.mddand.pc2also support animated meshes. It will depend on what the other app supports. Basically these exporters "bake" a copy of the mesh for each frame. You can use the mesh cache modifier in blender to use these exported animations within blender. OpenVDB is similar but uses voxels, and is used for smoke and fluid. $\endgroup$