Question about how the animations are actually exported

#1 I wondered this too - is it exporting the keyframed animation controls or just the transform of each joint? After working with it for awhile, I noticed diffrerent DSQs with different control rigs but with the same skeletal structure all worked fine when applied to the same DTS. So I guess it only matters how the skeleton is moving, not what is moving it. you could use this to your advantage by having one rig driven by expressions and one with controls.

#2 Ok, I did find this,
Short Answer:
You can do either, but you don't need them to make your model work. On export, the animation is baked down into rotation values on the bones. It would be better to cull them out so you don't have a bunch of extra nodes floating around that need to be transformed in the engine.

so I guess I just need to find a way of using mel to make a culling list that I can paste into my .cfg file to keep them from exporting. If I have to type them all in think I will be sick.

I'm also asumming that I have to do the same for the effectors and constraint nodes that things of that nature to but I would really like to know if someone could clarify. what about group nodes in my hierarcy
? I have a rootGrp node that I have the top half of my skeleton and the bottom half both parented to. will the exporter just treat it as a joint or what?

#3 You are correct, the exporter just samples your animation and exports the transforms for your bones so you can rig it up however you want (and yes, that means you can have different rigs for different DSQs as long as the exported bones are the same).

I use max, but the maya exporter should work the same. What I usually do is to not link my rig controllers to the rest of the hierarchy but instead just position constraint them to the necessary bones. I also prefix the control object (and IK end effector and whatever) names with something like ctrl (so a typical rig helper may be named something like ctrl_LeftFoot and so on) , then you just have to put ctrl* on the NeverExport list in your cfg.

#4 Ahh so you can use wildcards "8" in the NeverExport? that will be a big help.

so them my only concern is my group node that I have for a root.

See here

is this going to function? or do I have to add and extrat joint in to replace this funtionallity?

#5 Yes, wildcards work just fine. Can't see any problems with the picture you posted, you can probably add rootGrp to your NeverExport list.

#6 So you are saying that when something is omitted the hiearchy stays intact?

Very interesting! Thanx

#7 Yes, you can remove stuff in the middle of the hierarchy, the removed objects transforms will even be propagated up the chain. You obviously have to be a bit careful when doing this (no mesh should be linked to the removed nodes for example).

#8 Cool, good to know!

#9 Are influence objects supported?

#10 Being a 3d studio guy I don't know what the term "influence object" is referring to I'm afraid. (My initial guess would be "probably not" though, but as I said, that's just a guess until someone explains what these "influence objects" do =)

#11 Yeah they aren't