Lottie Export
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Intro
Lottie is an open source animation file format originally created by the team at Airbnb. Because Lottie is vector based files can be very lightweight, scalable and rendered natively on mobile and the web. The format is gaining in popularity and is now the centre of a thriving LottieFiles community.
Cavalry offers native support for Lottie export via the File menu or the Render Manager. Further options can also be found on the Advanced tab in the Attribute Editor.
UI
Exporting to Lottie is very straight forward. Simply use the File > Export Lottie... menu item. It's also possible to export to Lottie via the Render Manager so can be used alongside other native features like Dynamic Rendering.
Further options to refine how Shapes are exported to Lottie can be found in the Advanced tab of a Shape's Attribute Editor UI.
When exporting files, Cavalry allows you to add information on the author in the exported file. This can be added via the Lottie Author option in the Preferences window.
Previewing
We highly recommend using LottieFiles to preview animations. Simply navigate to https://lottiefiles.com/preview and drag the exported .json Lottie file into the browser window. From here you can also share links your animations.
Troubleshooting
Optimising
While the Lottie format is expanding it is not as full featured as Cavalry so there are some limitations as to what can be exported. However, where feature parity is lacking, Cavalry will attempt to intelligently bake the shape animation so a wide range of possibilities are available.
Generally speaking, Lottie files are very small but the less baking required, the smaller the exported file will be. If file size is very important to you then the list below comprises the features that will not require any baking whatsoever (assuming there are no Deformers connected to the Shape) and therefore result in the smallest files:
- Position
- Rotation
- Fill > Alpha
- Stroke > Alpha
- Stroke > Width
- Stroke > Trim Start
- Stroke > Trim End
- Stroke > Trim Travel
- Path Animation
- Star > Point Count
- Star > Radius
- Star > Inner Radius
The following features are all supported but are known to create relatively large files when exporting to Lottie:
- Deformers.
- Magic Easing on paths.
- Animating any Primitive attribute (except for Star) . e.g. Tooth Depth on Cogwheel.
- Rig Control and Animation Control (when used with Path Animation).
- If your exported file size is large but your scene doesn't have any animation in it you may want to change Lottie Baking setting from Automatic to Still in the Advanced tab of the Shape's Attribute Editor UI.
- If your Lottie export is missing some animation you were expecting to see, try one of the Animated or Nuclear Lottie Baking options in the Advanced tab of the Shape's Attribute Editor UI.
Tips
| Feature | Attribute | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fill | Alpha | This is the Alpha attribute and not the Fill Color's alpha. |
| Stroke | Alpha | This is the Alpha attribute and not the Stroke Color's alpha. |
| Stroke | Trim End | The LottieFiles player doesn’t handle the case where Trim Start > Trim End. |
| Parenting | The parent renders in front – you may find a Group or Null a better option. | |
| Masks | When using masks with animation use Path Animation to animate the shape or the mask (or both). Masking a Group (or Parent) is not supported. |
Working with Images
It's possible to export image assets to Lottie. LottieFiles support previewing a zipped file containing the .json and an images folder containing any image assets.
- Import an image.
- Drag the image into the Viewport to create a Footage Shape and an Image Shader and connect the image.
- Export to Lottie. This will output a
.jsonfile and animagesfolder containing the image. - Zip both the
.jsonfile andimagesfolder. - Uploaded the .zip to LottieFiles.
Support does not yet extend to Image Sequences and it's not possible to directly embed an image into the .json file — only to reference the image asset in the images directory.
Unsupported Features
The following Cavalry features are not supported via Lottie export:
| Feature | Notes |
|---|---|
| All Filters | Blurs, Levels, TriTone etc. |
| Noise Shader | |
| SkSL Shader | |
| Color Shader | |
| Shape to Shader | |
| Sweep or Conical Gradients | The Lottie format does not support these. |
| Fill/Stroke > Color > Alpha | Use Fill/Stroke Alpha instead. |
| Stroke > Dash Pattern | |
| Transform > Skew | |
| Shape Opacity | Use Fill/Stroke Alpha instead. |
| Linear Gradient > Gradient Scales with Rotation | |
| Text | Text will export as Shapes and not editable Text |
| Animation curves set to loop |
If you have a Lottie file that's not working as you'd expect having followed the guidelines then get in touch on Discord.