[Bf-committers] Collada importer/exporter kickout

[Juan Linietsky]

Hi guys,

    I made my own Collada exporter in Python and that's what I've been
using. It's less than 1k lines of code and does not depend upon any library
or anything, but it exports everything except morphs. I don't have much
time to work on it at the moment, but it's so simple and complete that if
anyone else want's to work on it, it should be really easy. I'm also not an
expert at Python or Blender API so someone more experience can probably
shape it up better. It's also much more stable than the official one (due
to it being so small).

Feel free to do anything with it or integrate it into Blender, just credit
me on the file. I would love to work more on it, or even make a proper
importer since I have a high level of expertise in Collada, but I have very
little time and must work to earn my meals.

Cheers!

Juan Linietsky


On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Morten Mikkelsen <mikkelsen7 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yes that's a very relevant point. A collada solution with just positions,
> UVs and normals
> is not a solution. In that case you might as well use obj format.
> I went through the hard work of writing a collada importer specifically to
> get skinning and animation
> into my tech frame-work.
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 5:03 AM, skoti <skoti48 at o2.pl> wrote:
>
> > I know Collada importer / exporter is problematic (I wrote an importer
> > for my engine and I know that everything in the Collada can be stored in
> > N different ways).
> >
> > - If you want to use the model in Second Life / Google Earth, you have
> > to use Collada, if you want to use models in engines WebGL/Flash3D
> > practically have to use Collada (is there any web engine with FBX
> > importer?), Most game engines use Collada for importing data (support
> > for FBX a few). FBX exporter also has bugs. Well, that FBX is in a
> > blender, but it is not usually an option for people using Collada.
> >
> > - If someone uses Collada it not for the base mesh + uv (then using *.
> > obj) and for skeletal animation, lights, cameras and their animation
> > (motion, color, light and their intensity), multiUV (uv for color,
> > normalmap ... + uv for lightmap). And all this in current Collada
> > exporter works well.
> >
> > - No other exporter does not work here as well as Collada - ofc has
> > bugs, but it has nothing what could replace the Collada in this task. In
> > the future, Alembic can replace Collada, but not for several years.
> >
> > IMO, better to leave Collada, until you will be able to replace it with
> > success to other formats like Alembic (FBX is not popular in the
> > software and you can not replace him Collada in most tasks).
> >
> >
> > On 7 Jan, 2012, at 12:30, Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I realize the proposal was harsh, but it was meant as a public
> statement
> > as well (to khronos, opencollada team, etc). I don't want to blame it on
> > the hard working devs here. We do have collada IO work at some level, and
> > that has been proven useful in several cases. The job is just incredible
> > hard to achieve.
> > >
> > > To move forward:
> > >
> > > - userts who successfully applied .dae could also check whether another
> > exchange format would have done the job as good. Tried FBX?
> > >
> > > - note that for basic mesh (+uv) export, a quite simple script could do
> > the job already. It is probably a few days job for a py scripter.
> > >
> > > - we are currently including about 100 MB of opencollada libs to make a
> > feature work that's meant to be able to exchange (I+O) full shots or game
> > environments, with character animation and so on. That's what Collada was
> > designed for, and that's a target we can't support.
> > >
> > > -Ton-
> > >
> > >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org
> www.blender.org
> > > Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands
> > >
> > > On 6 Jan, 2012, at 21:21, Morten Mikkelsen wrote:
> > >
> > >>> 1) Official announcement that Blender drops Collada support
> > >>> 2) Move Collada support into a branch, out of trunk
> > >>> 3) Create a tracker "orphanage" or "branches" or so, where we put all
> > >>> reports that are not in support (anymore).
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> I just want to say though I am not up for the challenge of taking over
> > on
> > >> this sub project I would be sad to see Collada support taken out of
> > trunk.
> > >> I use it often also with skinning export. I know many users do and
> > >> eventhough I understand everyone's frustration I prefer the
> > implementation
> > >> that is there now (which I use often) to no built-in version at all.
> > >>
> > >> I am not disagreeing with any of the frustrating aspects of Collada
> > which
> > >> you and others have mentioned.
> > >> Just saying personally I do use it and would very much like to keep it
> > in.
> > >> With bugs and all :)
> > >>
> > >> I have seen many other commercial tools with awful crappy .3ds
> importers
> > >> and exporters but bad as they were they didn't take them out
> > >> because people were still relying on them and using them. Despite the
> > bugs
> > >> in them.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >>
> > >> Morten.
> > >> _______________________________________________
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