[Bf-committers] Collada importer/exporter kickout

Tue Jan 10 22:48:15 CET 2012

I didn't realize a collada exporter was so important. If so..

I have a *very* *tested* and *very* *small* collada importer in my
middleware stuff (~3k lines of C++ code). It supports pretty much
everything (models, skeletons, materials, cameras, lights, morphs, any-axis
orientation, animations with matrices or curves, etc).

Given it's very small size and non-dependency on OC, it's very easy to
understand and *very easy to mantain*. It pretty much just ignores
conformance of input files and just attempts to grab wathever data it needs
so *compatibility is extremely high*.

It's not a standalone library, but it's separated enough that *if someone
knowledgable of blender internals *wants to give a try to adapting it to
blender (of course with me 100% available for answering questions with
this), i think in a matter of a few hours we can solve the Blender problem
of collada import support. However as I said in previous mails, I really
lack the time to get familiar with Blender internals and do this myself.

Cheers

Juan Linietsky

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Erwin Coumans <erwin.coumans at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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