"How can I convert my Lightwave animations to Flash?" is a frequently asked question. Tools are slowly emerging that let you import Lightwave objects and render them as vector animations. But these methods are severely limited, and will be for some time. For example, they cannot convert hypervoxels to flash animations. In fact, all the tools necessary to convert your animations to Flash exist within Flash. Here are some tips on how to convert ANY animation or video to vector Flash format.
There are things you can do to improve the conversion process within Lightwave. Use cel shaders, high ambient lighting, and/or high luminosity to create vector friendly art. That being said, in some cases Flash can deal well with very complex bitmaps, too. You basically have the option of cutting detail in LW or cutting detail in Flash...I usually cut a little in both apps... When you render, use PNG, PICT or another lossless format with an alpha channel...see below for why.
When importing a bitmap, Flash recognizes alpha channels. This is a huge time saver. LW Lesson: render out Picts or PNGs with alpha channels. DON'T render out JPGs or other lossy formats, as this will muck up the "Trace Bitmap" process. When importing a bitmap with a sequence number at the end of the title, Flash will ask you if you want to import the whole sequence. Furthermore, the image sequence will be inproted across frames in the selected layer. Another huge time saver. Once you have completed this import, you've got a bitmap Flash animation. To convert to vector art, use "Modify/Trace Bitmap". The look is distinctive but I like it...way better than the Adobe Streamline vectorizor I think. Play with the settings to cut down the size or increase the detail.
As far as I know, you can't convert multiple frames in one pass. Perhaps this will change in a future version of Flash. How do you speed up this process? I created a macro (using a 3rd party application) to automate it...doesn't really speed it up, but at least I can have a snack while Flash does all the work. I used a 3rd party application to create the macro. Perhaps you can write macros in Flash with the current version...I don't know.
Click here to view a Lightwave to Flash conversion animation.
With this method you can vectorize any animation. Try out hypervoxels or heavily textured objects...they can make some cool vector art...
Dug Stanat
Addendum
Lots of people have asked if I can share the Trace Bitmap macro. The macro was NOT a Flash macro. The macro was for a shareware application called KeyQuencher that only worked with MacOS 8.5. If you are running KeyQuencher on MacOS 8.5, here it is. Otherwise, get a Macro application that can send commands to Flash and write your own macro.
Regarding new tools. I have heard of several new tools for Lightwave that make .swf files. Flicker is the name I can remember. I haven't used any of them. For simple stuff, my guess is they do a better job than the method described about. For line art I would imagine they are far superior. I suspect there are limitations to what they can vectorize, though.