Embed image as relative path

Hello, I’m a motion graphics designer who works with web developers. I created an animation and rendered it in Lottie. According to the developer the file size is too large (2.2mb) since it looks that images I used were transformed into base24 code (I have no idea what this means).

The question is: Is there an option to embed the images as a relative path in order to decrease filesize?

Thanks in advance!

I too have this problem. I would like to be able to have the images be external from the lottie or JSON file so I can texture pack them separately. In Bodymovin you can have them be a separate linked PNG instead of an embedded one. But not in the newer Lottie based extension for AE.