Does there need to be more then one death animation for units?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I notice 3 distinct death animation files for the IDF walker, but they are all different. Are all 3 required to make the model perform correctly in game? Can I simplify things by having a single death animation or would that cause problems on such a model. I know the other related animations serve a separate function for things like walking, turning, sit-down and idle, but the multiple death animations seem redundant. Are they included to give the model a more interesting look in game? Tanks...BNG.

PS: I've begun experimenting with doing bone and joint animations in GSL and found that a single joint can have all 3 XYZ axis active for things like horizontal, vertical and tilt traversing to manipulate them along with the object geometry after they are skinned together. I also pretty much understand the key frame editor well enough to create multiple key fames in my animation experiments.

[bigbadbogie]

no - it doesnt matter if you only use one animation - just if you want it to it can use 3 different ones - i think it randomly selects one when a unit dies

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Tanks BBB, I've started looking in to doing animations and needed to know if it was a bad thing to reduce the animation work load. I've gotten animated XSI files derived from X files to animate in game. Still working out the bugs, but at least I'm pointed in the right direction now.

The X2XSI converter works pretty good on animations after adding the SI_ to AnimationKey entry with a text editor. There are other issues with the X2XSI files like no texture showing. BZ2ME, on the other hand handles the texture formatting better, but sucks at handling animation information. As I've mentioned before the key seems to be in using parts from both XSI versions to effectively produce an actual animating XSI variant...BNG.