Along the top of the exporter user interface you will see the four tab buttons. Each button will display a different page of options when pressed.

(tab buttons shown highlighted in red)

(from left to right)

• Sequences - the sequences page is where you will choose which animations you wish to export and configure the options for each animation.
• Armatures - the armatures page is where you can choose which bones you wish to exclude from the export, if any.
• General - the general page is where you will configure general options for the export, including the output folder, Triangle Stripping, Cluster Mesh, and billboard options.
• About - Exporter credits

The export button to the right of the tab buttons will export your model and animations with the current settings.

On the left you see the sequence list, titled "Action Sequences". Each action that you create in Blender will show up in this list. Next to each action name, you will see four buttons:

(from left to right)

• Export - if this button is pressed, the action will be exported as a sequence.
• Dsq - if this button is pressed, the sequence will be exported in a separate .dsq file, and will not be contained within the .dts. The advantage of separating your animations from your model is that you can reuse those animations on another model that contains the same bone (node) structure.
• Blend - if this button is pressed, it causes the action to be exported as a "Blend" sequence. A blend sequence is additive in nature. More on this in the next section.
• Cyclic - if this button is pressed, it causes the exported sequence to play in a loop.

To the right of the sequence list, you will see the following options:

(Top: Sequence options, Bottom: Triggers options)

(from top to bottom)

• Frames - Here you can set the number of frames to be exported. The exporter samples your animations at certain frames in order to export them. This setting tells the exporter how many samples to take. It defaults to the number of frames in your animations (one frame exported for each frame in your animation). You can decrease this value to save space, but your animations may lose precision.
• Ground Frames - Ground frames are used by the engine to sync a player's animations with their movement speed, as well as to orient the player to the ground when required. For example, if the player dies on a slope, ground frames in the death animation make sure that he conforms to the ground after he is dead. In order to use ground frames, you must have an object in your scene called "Bounds" (preferably a mesh object, but any type should do). The bounds object does not need to be parented to anything, the exporter will find it by name. This bounds object is used as a reference point for the actual ground the player is standing on in-game. Setting the ground frames to a number greater than 0 will cause ground frames to be exported for the selected animation.
• Material Animation ("Mat Anim") - this option is used to export material animations. As of exporter version 0.90, visibility animations (alpha) are the only type of material animation supported. The "Start" spinner to the right of the Mat Anim button chooses the starting frame for the visibility animation.
• Priority - This setting lets you assign a priority to the currently selected animation. If two or more animations that effect the same bones are played at the same time, the one with the highest priority will gain control of the disputed bones.

The trigger options allow you to export "animation triggers" along with your animation. Each trigger can effect a trigger state, turning it either on or off.

(from top to bottom)

• Trigger pull down - this allows you to select any of the available triggers in order to adjust their properties.
• State - this will allow you to select which "state" the trigger will effect. In torque the trigger states are numbered between 1 and 32. Some trigger states have a specific meaning in the engine. The button next to the trigger labeled "On" allows you to choose the state's new value.
• Frame - The frame of the animation on which the trigger activates in order to change one of the trigger states.
• Add and Del - These buttons allow you to add a new trigger, or to delete the selected trigger.

If you set an animation to be exported as a "Blend" sequence, a new set of options will appear on the right hand side of the sequence page.

(Blend animation options highlighted in red)

These two options allow you to select an action and frame to be used as the "reference pose" for your Blend animation. The Blend animation is then exported relative to that pose. For instance, if the reference pose is the same as a frame of the blend animation, that would be written out as no change in location, rotation, or scale. You can think of the reference pose as having been subtracted out. When blend animations are played in the engine, they are "overlaid" on top of the current pose of the character. The blend animations add to the current pose.

The armatures tab contains a list of bones. If the button for a particular bone is pressed, it will be exported. If the button is not pressed, the bone and all of it's child bones will be excluded from the export.

If the enable button is pressed, the exporter will attempt to convert your model into triangle strips. The "Strip Size" slider allows you to control the maximum number of triangles in a strip.

These options have to do with mesh sorting. The depth value is the maximum depth for sorted meshes.

These options allow you to export a dts shape with an "auto-billboard" detail level. What this means is that your model will be replaced with a flat "billboard" picture of the model in one of your detail levels (usually the lowest one). The Billboard options are as follows:

• Equator spinner - allows you to select the number of snapshots that will be taken around the equator of the model for each ring.
• Polar spinner - allows you to select the number of snapshots of the model are taken "pole-to-pole" for each pass.
• Size slider - Allows you to choose the Pixel size at which the detail level will display.
• Polar Angle slider - sets the maximum viewing angle of the model before it switches to the north or south pole view.
• Dim spinner - Allows you to set the dimensions of the snapshot. The Dim value is width x height. A dim value of 64, for instance will produce billboard snapshots that are 8x8 pixels.
• Pole spinner - Allows you to choose whether or not to export snapshots for the poles (directly above and below the object).

The total number of billboard snapshots that will be taken is equal to: (number of equator snapshots) x (number of polar snapshots) + 2 if "Poles" is also selected.