Hi, for the next few posts I will be talking about some features of Animhub that is available in my github for download. Although I am still refactoring it, it is usable as of now, so feel free to check it out.
Exporting a cycle for a game usually involves a few steps
1.importing the reference
2.removing namespaces
3.baking animation (bones with or without mesh)
4.optimize scene
5.export FBX
6.Then depending on your file structure you can save the file a selected directory in the game engine.
So as a small company , I am 1 person who will have to do this multiple times a day. And it is taking a toll on me when i have 140 main characters for One Piece : Bounty Rush , each character with 16 ~ 25 cycles. (Mostly 25) And we have not even touched different skins of the same character sometimes with drastically different cycles.
My job as lead was to check animation, discuss with client on attack styles, and integrate cycles into engine. Therefore early on, I already have the intention to automate this process when we just clinched the deal. During the project we were able to standardize a naming convention and a folder structure that helped with the process.
So with 1 click, I was able to export the cycle if it is approved and also prepare the playblast (preview) for the client in a particular folder. Here's the script in action.