OgreMax Scene Exporter for 3DS Max - Mesh Animations

Mesh Animations

### What is a Mesh Animation?

A mesh animation is a type of animation that animates the vertices of a mesh. There are 3 types of mesh animations exported by OgreMax:

1. Skeleton - This type of animation is created by attaching a skeleton to a mesh using the Skin or Physique modifier and animating the bones of the skeleton.
2. Pose - This type of animation is created by applying a Morpher modifier to a mesh and choosing various morph targets and animated influences.
3. Morph - Any mesh can be exported as a morph. This type of animation generates an animated mesh by interpolating between snapshots of a mesh taken at various points in time.

### 3DS Max Timeline

All animations are created on a single timeline. For example, if you have a character that walks, runs, and jumps then those animations will all exist on the same timeline at different times.

### Mesh Animation Settings

The OgreMax Scene Exporter generates animations based on the settings on the Mesh Animations page of the Object Settings dialog for a mesh.

There are a few settings to be aware of when setting up mesh animations:

- Mesh Animation Type - This setting, located on the Mesh Animations page, indicates the type(s) of animation that will be created on the exported mesh. The listed types are automatically detected based on the current state of the mesh, and the best state is generally chosen by default.
- Mesh Animations - These settings, also located on the Mesh Animations page, list the animations to be extracted from the 3DS Max timeline. For each of these settings:
  - The Track indicates which part of the mesh the animation applies to, which is used to determine what type of animation to export.
  - The Start and End times must correspond to the associated times on the timeline where the animation actually takes place. See the Mesh Animation dialog for more details.

### Exporting

When the scene is exported the animations will be created according to the configured animation settings.