Animation and LIXA¶
What is Lixa?¶
The LIXA (Lightweight XML Animation) format is an XML animation format used in the VastPark platform for bone-based animations.
- More information on LIXA
Getting Started¶
Lixa is currently only available for 3DS Max users.
The installer for the LIXA Animation Exporter for 3ds Max can be downloaded here.
Upon launching the LIXA Animation Exporter, the following dialog will appear:
STEP 1:¶
To begin, you must first specify the bone groups you wish to use. This involves creating each group via the "Groups" section of the dialog.
STEP 2:¶
Once a group has been created, scene bones must now be added to the group. This can be done by either adding bones using "Add Bones" in the bone settings section, or loading a Bone Naming Convention (BNC) file in the "Bone Naming Convention File" section, with the group selected.
Once a bone is added to the group, you can select which transforms (Position, Rotation, Scale) to include in the animation file.
Note: Bone names containing spaces are not supported in the VastPark platform, and any spaces contained in a bone name will always be altered to underscores. Therefore, spaces should not be used in bone names in the original 3ds Max scene file.
STEP 3:¶
Once a group contains one or more bones, sequences can be added to the group. Each sequence includes a name, frame start time and frame end time. Frame times are inclusive.
Sequences can be added to the group manually, or by loading a Sequence (SEQ) file.
STEP 4:¶
Once groups and sequences have been defined, it's now a matter of specifying the author, the animation file name, the reference frame and the save location.
The reference frame indicates the frame where the avatar is in the default pose. This is the pose the avatar was published in. All transformations are then calculated relative to that initial pose.
As LIXA animation files are referenced inside a ZIP archive to minimise download time for the end user, you can select whether to automatically package the animation file inside a ZIP archive.
Note: The method used by the exporter to create a ZIP archive produces a larger file than other zipping tools. As such, we recommend manually zipping the file using a tool such as 7Zip.
