[Bf-committers] status Collada 1.4 Blender plug-in animation support

[P. Visser]

Hi all,

Here is an update about animation support for Collada...

I encountered some problems with the animation support. There were a couple
of things not working correctly in the original code of the plug-in (with
parent-child elements), so the positions of the childs were not set
properly.

Also, I only have 1 Collada example file with animation. I can create some
Collada files in Maya, but I don't know if the Maya plug-in is working
correctly. When I import Seymour140.dae, It's al messed up. (But with the
standalone Collada viewer from Feeling Software it does work...)

I did a lot of research in how skinning works and how to address that with
the Blender Python API. Last week I managed to implement the basics for
importing an armature in Blender, so that is good news. There are a couple
of things to enhance that part, but the foundation is there.

Still a lot of work must be done, but I'll survive ;).

I've got a Blender question though:

In Collada (and Maya) skeletons consist of joints (instead of bones in
Blender). When I move a Joint in Maya, the 'bone' is stretched. How do I
achieve the same results in Blender? I don't see how to stretch a bone in
Pose Mode. Can someone give me some insight about this?

Best Regards,

Pieter Visser