PSA Exporter:

The PSA Exporter was developed to perform three main functions:

• Zeroing out a character for cases where he flies through the air (feet leave the ground) and lands again (feet or body impact).
• Plotting the character's hips translation to a "positionLocator" node (that is read by the game).
• Exporting animations in the Unreal PSA format.

Settings:

Expanding the settings layout reveals the options for the UI and functionality. The control explanations (in order of UI):

• Field "Path to Assets Source Folder" lets the tool know what directory to start in when browsing for source files.
• Field "Path to Assets Exported Folder" lets the tool know what the root of the export directory is.
• CheckBox "Use UI config file when importing and exporting" will record the UI settings and save a UI config file on PSA export. It will also read in the config on import.
• ChecBox "Enable Hardware Texturing on Import" is for toggling texture display in the viewport (without textures improves playback speed).
• CheckBox "Perforce auto add or open for edit" will auto add or open for edit exported PSAs and config files in Perforce. It will also collect source files (if they're open for edit).
• Checkbox "Open explorer folder on export" will open an explorer window revealing the exported PSA location.
• Field "FPS" is the ActorX export rate. It should be kept at 60 fps for In-Game exporting.
• OptionMenus "Select Attacker Model" and "Select Victim Model" allows the user to select between character models and weaponry.

Export Fields:

The exporting section contains fields that are used to build necessary options for exporting through Maya's ActorX.mll plugin, for unreal export in the PSA format.
The fields in this section will be auto-completed upon browsing for the "MO" .fbx file using the "Import Attacker MO" and "Import Victim MO" buttons.

• Button "Import Attacker MO" and "Import Victim MO" buttons open a browser for browsing to "motion only" (MO) .fbx files, as exported from MotionBuilder.
• TextField "Animation" will be auto completed upon "MO" browsing. It is the name of the PSA animaton.
• TextField "Sequence" will be auto completed upon "MO" browsing. It is the name of the PSA Sequence, and should always begin with an exclamation mark "!_".
  This designation means that it is ready for use by the designers. (They remove the "!_" after they've processed it). .
• TextField "Export Dir" will be auto completed upon "MO" browsing. It is the name of the directory the PSA will be exported to..
• IntField "Start Frame will be auto populated upon "MO" browsing, with the first key of animation on the imported character.
• IntField "End Frame will be auto populated upon "MO" browsing, with the last key of animation on the imported character.

The "ZERO/CENTER OF MASS" Layout contains fields for "Zeroing" out a character (more like pinning in place, really), and calculating a new center of mass for realistic movement in the engine.
Usually, a character that jumps, flips, falls, or generally translates for any length of time requires "zeroing" and a new center of mass calculation.

• IntField "Frame Feet Leave" is the frame right after the feet have left the ground for the character (or together).
• IntField "Frame Before Landing" is the frame right before the character's feet (or body) touch the ground.
• IntField "Impact Up Distance" is for "dropping" a character the entered amount, for one frame upon landing (the curve is actually shifted back up this amount, creating the drop).
• CheckBoxes "Process Channels X Y Z" allow zeroing of specific channels for different situations. For example, a character the "leaps" at another might only have the leap direction processed.

• Layout "Center of Mass Settings" contains fields that are used to weight areas of the body for real-time calculation of center of mass. These settings should mostly be kept as-is, as they are rarely (if ever) changed.

• Button "Cmass Attacker" and "Cmass Victim" will do the zeroing, add the drop frame, and recalculate the center of mass for each character.
• Button "Cmass Together" is used when the Attacker and the Victim are "stuck together" when flying through the air, sharing the same center of mass.

Note that "zeroing out" doesn't mean taking the character's hips to 0 0 0. It means the Hip values are queried at the "Frame Before Landing" field, and are "pinned" there. The center of mass recalculation adds additional values back in.

Plotting:

• Buttons "FIN Attacker", "FIN Both", and "FIN Victim" buttons will remove the translation curves from the Hips (on the Attacker) and put them on the positionLocator. The Victim's positionLocator is kept where it is, so the engine knows the relative distance from the Attacker. ("FIN" standards for "Finalize").
  
• CheckBoxes "Plot T" and "Plot R" will toggle the translation and rotation on the positionLocator on and off.

Exporting:

• Buttons "PSA Attacker", "PSA Both", and "PSA Victim" buttons export the animations out as a PSA, based on the fields entered in the the ActorX section.