Im Trying to use Houdini animations in XNA Gamedev. I can import FBX animation information but the animation must have named TAKES.

For example if i have a 100 frames animation. from 1 to 30 is wallking,31 to 70 is running and 71 to 100 is falling ground. In maya you can name those takes and call separately from XNA.

Can I name those takes in houdini? how?

thanks a lot!

Likely the most straightforward place to do that is in a Take list. You can double-click on the names.

This may work if you're prepared to import an FBX file per take.
One thing to note would be that our FBX exporter currently supports exporting only a single take at a time - mostly because in FBX, a take is something used strictly for animation, while in Houdini it has a more broad meaning and can be used on any node parameter.

So in your case, you would probably need to create three different takes in Houdini (one for each part of your animation). To do this, look in the top-right corner of the program where it says “Main” (take). If you click on the drop down list, you'll see an option to create a new take. When you select it, Houdini will create a new take named “take1”. To rename it, you can go to the main menu and choose Windows->Take List. Then, in the left panel you can click on a take to select it, hit Enter, and rename it.

When exporting to FBX, then, you can specify the name of the take to be exported, or leave it as the current take. Note that the FBX importer will set the FBX name of the take to its Houdini equivalent, but will only export one take per FBX file.

Hope this helps.

Ok thanks. I thought takes aren't the same in houdini than in FBX and you confirmed me it.

I prefer to create a single take with a single name with all animations one after another and use an intermediary tool to register witch frames corresponds with each animation. If y create separate FBX, my program will last too much opening each FBX with same geo and textures but different animation… or I should try exporting geo and textures in one FBX, and each animation appart in each other FBX file…

I will probe…

thanks a lot!!