[Bf-committers] Collada importer/exporter kickout
Gaia Clary
gaia.clary at machinimatrix.org
Tue Jan 10 16:46:09 CET 2012
Hi, all.
While i believe that creating target dependent exporters/importers for
Collada
make a lot of sense, i also believe in collaboration instead of
separation :)
Wouldn't it be much more appealing to organize this as follows:
(i refer to a discussion on #blendercoders yesterday in IRC)
The idea is (independent on what basis it is implemented):
1.) Create a basic exporter/importer pair which works for blender
itself, is rock solid (exported objects/scenes/whatever will be reimported
without changes) and is eventually complete (regarding Blender)
I name this "Blender Collada" in the following.
2.) For each target system create an Exporter Blender2Target which does:
- call the Blender Collada exporter
- Applies a transform to the exported file.
A transform can be any program, maybe even an XSL transformation
which takes the given .dae and transforms it to another .dae which works
for the target system.
The Blender2Target modules should be addon modules for easy maintenance
by the responsible developers (target maintainers)
3.) For each Source system create an Importer Source2Blender which does:
- Applies a transform to the import file.
- call the Blender Collada Importer
A transform can be any program, maybe even an XSL transformation
which takes the given .dae and transforms it to another .dae which works
for Blender Collada.
The Source2Blender modules should be addon modules for easy maintenance
by the responsible developers (target maintainers)
====
For my understanding the benefits of doing it like proposed above are:
- Blender Collada can be done with Blender in Mind. No need to think
about how other target systems might interpret the data. It should
be enough to document, how Blender interprets it.
- Blender Collada can be created and tested by Blender developers/users
- .blend files can be created for testing export/reimport
- Blender2Target and Source2Blender transformers can be added by people
who know what their target system needs. These addons are decoupled
from the Blender Collada core and maintained by the specialists without
interfering with possibly different needs for other target systems.
====
I also can not judge if the current Collada Implementation is close to a
"Blender Collada" or far away from that. Its still you developers who
decide what makes most sense. But i doubt it makes much sense to
create one complete Collada exporter for each target system.
So that was my one Euro and 2 cents on this topic :)
cheers,
Gaia
Am 10.01.2012 15:30, schrieb Erwin Coumans:
> Until Blender has good fbx import or an alternative collada import
> (python?) it would be good to postpone dropping OpenCollada.
>
> > From the feedback, some people are using the import feature, and there is
> no replacement.
>
> Let's hope someone stands up and fixes the issues in trunk, rather then
> branch.
> On Jan 10, 2012 2:15 AM, "Ton Roosendaal"<ton at blender.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> The Collada conformance suite is not working, and working on it won't help
>> anything.
>> I wrote about this here;
>> http://code.blender.org/index.php/2011/10/collada-momentum/
>>
>> Collada just has no reference stakeholder(s) (like how fbx was native for
>> motionbuilder).
>> Blender would be the worst stakeholder for it even, since we have the
>> awesome .blend :)
>>
>> Much better stakeholders would be Linden Labs (2nd life), or CryTek... or
>> Daz? Three names of companies who make plenty of dollars with software
>> licensing. Why don't they put an employee as developer in our team, to
>> ensure Collada exports smoothly for their products?
>>
>> I even wouldn't mind a (python) addon "Export to DazCollada, CryCollada,
>> 2ndLifeCollada, etc. It's how collada has been designed to work anyway...
>>
>> -Ton-
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation ton at blender.org www.blender.org
>> Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands
>>
>> On 10 Jan, 2012, at 0:25, Sebastian wrote:
>>
>>> COLLADA has a great conformance test suite at
>>> http://www.khronos.org/conformance/implementers/collada/
>>>
>>> It's being made available for free and I've already seen Blender results
>>> uploaded some time ago.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 09.01.2012 23:52, spatial wrote:
>>>>> For the COLLADA community Blender is definitely one of the most
>>>>> important stakeholders to stop supporting COLLADA would make things in
>>>>> DCC exchange even worse.
>>>> I agree. Not to mention all those who co use it alongside LW , all of
>>>> DAZ products....etc.
>>>>
>>>> I actually tried to avoid a discussion here since a long time,
>>>> but topic is too important.
>>>>
>>>> First, kicking out collada from blender doesn't help anyone. None of the
>>>> "common" interexchange formats is that reliable / support all features.
>>>> To have at least a second format as a backup strategy, if a certain
>>>> features arent't supported / have some unreliable results, is a "must
>>>> have" in every cross application enviroment.
>>>>
>>>> And btw, blenders FBX import is, from my experience, still not as
>>>> reliable as it should be, to actually replace collada. (sorry, this is
>>>> no actual bashing... its already great what has been archived...
>>>> especially if you consider that it is allways pain in the ass, to
>>>> support such a complex exchange format)
>>>>
>>>>> We are currently discussing further financing of OpenCOLLADA and will
>>>>> spend more time the next months on bugfixing and conformance tests.
>>>>>
>>>> Sorry to say this, but this is one of the mayor reasons I have to post
>> this:
>>>> Conformance tests do only help a little to 0
>>>> The big _advantage_ fbx has, is a working reference application called
>> maya.
>>>> No conformance test can actually be that foolproof to support all
>>>> features and variations. So by this simple unoffical agreement,"if it
>>>> doesn't work in maya - it is broken", users and developers have an ideal
>>>> platform to discuss errors / find workarounds. This greatly avoids the
>>>> "picking in the dark" situation all developers currently face with
>>>> collada. Even if a dev doesn't have access to it, in a lot of cases, he
>>>> can track down problems reported by users who do provide a simple
>>>> screenshot.
>>>>
>>>> Could this collada reference application be Blender ?
>>>> For me this is a very attractive idea, but also, I'm very aware of the
>> fact,
>>>> that I'm opening a can of worms I'm actually in no way in the right
>>>> position to touch.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway just my 2 cents on this.
>>>> chris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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