Interaction Design: Selecting an Animation Does Not Mark It for Export, and multi selection ux issue, Introduction to Radio buttons.

[PooyaDeperson]

Right now when I select an animation, it doesn’t trigger the checkbox for export.
As a user, I would normally expect that the animation I’m previewing in the timeline
is the same one I can immediately export.

I also noticed that the checkbox suggests multi-selection,
but this doesn’t actually work
if you try to select multiple animations, only the first one will download.
This adds unnecessary confusion.

My suggestion:

1. Change the checkbox to a radio button to make it clear that
   only one animation can be selected.

2. When an animation is previewed, it should also auto-select the
   radio button, so the export is always tied to what’s being previewed.

This way it’s more intuitive and avoids misleading
users into thinking multi select is possible when it isn’t.

[scottpetrovic]

Just to clarify, you can export out multiple animations at one time. I just tested this just to make sure it still works, and it seems to work. Here is my previewing a GLB file where I can switch between multiple animations.

I would be interested to learn how you are doing the selections if you are trying to export out multiple animations at one time. Maybe you are thinking they are all on one timeline?

[PooyaDeperson]

@scottpetrovic this is how I multiselect and download, and yes
I tried to preview them in blender and expected to see them as a
unified motion in the timeline timeline , what are you using to test the motions?

[scottpetrovic]

I am using the windows preview to switch between animations. In Blender, there are things called "Action". You can see the different actions in the NLA editor or dope sheet. This is nice since it makes it easier to import them in engines that need looping without having to specify things like end frames for each motion.

[PooyaDeperson]

@scottpetrovic nice, confirmed. works.

So we can to let the users know about this, upon download, I didnt dive in into actions to check, lazy user here!
will check also for c4d, maya and UE.

• Ux Design : Let users know how to access animations after multi-select download #22

[PooyaDeperson]

RE: Exporting the animation being previewed

As a user, I would normally expect that the animation I’m previewing in the
timeline is the same one I can immediately export.

Would it be possible to auto-select the animation once it’s clicked/previewed, so the export option is always tied to what the user is currently watching?

so you dont have to click on the checkbox!

[scottpetrovic]

We can potentially do that. I wanted to get more feedback from other people before we would consider that change. I thought trying to combine both of those function kind of broke the design idea of "separation of concerns". De-selecting something and the preview also changing to what you de-selected kind of seemed like an odd UX to me.