"Thanks for the tips, gfxmachine Beer
As for the Blender plugin, it would be nice if it supported multiple named animation sets one day."
It had some sort of support, I think inside the ascii file...¿templates? Can't remember...is just that anyway , plugins are never as complete as the formats themselves.
*.x animation sets and stuff..
keyframedanimationsetthis one looks like is for a non ascii but compressed *.x file pitty is no exporter that I know of...do this...well, if export from panda or blender as ascii, you can allways parse the file by some tool, so to insert the animation sets. I dunno. Or some python script for from inside blender, so that it exports them grabbing from like the NLA , Ipo window, dunno. Or just touch/improve the *.x script so to adapt it to your needs...I suppose it follows the artistic license, surely have to include Ben's data , etc. He sure explain at his site or the plugin, but the code is tehre for everybody, and for a programmer, which I am not, it must be not too hard to add this specific feature to the Blender plugin. Maybe I am wrong.
The main issue to all this is...i am not sure, but have a little suspect this is perhaps not in dx 8 specs, but in dx9 *.x specs...maybe I am wrong. If you see the url, I found it (google magic) under dx9 stuff...
Most plugins out there are supporting dx8 (ie, Blender's) though I think Panda does support 9, indeed, can export lightmapped levels with help of FVF templates, and other stuff with the .fx.
ANyway, a python chunk of code exporting the named anim sets from blender maybe not too hard.
But a generic application, that perhaps just takes an x ascii file, and, by user input allows the user to write down which frame is the start of a walk anim, which the end...etc...But I doubt this then is neeeded; if the artist do know where stuff starts and end, where's the issue? just needda pass a txt to the coder with the frames list, like ye good old times. or...export an anim file per action, which maybe or maybe not optimal, depends on case and engine.
hehe, yup, I told you x would be back to you...mwahaha.
Sorry, I have an strange sense of humor.