[Bf-committers] Collada Development (moving forward)

[Campbell Barton]

With our collada support lacking we're inviting developers who
previously submitted patches to become involved by getting svn commit
access and working on this area in blender directly.

Gaia Clary is available to test patches on a user level and do some of
the management involved with getting collada working right (collecting
test files, kicking devs when they break features etc).

To avoid overwhelming new collada devs with all bugs at once,
I suggest we try have a single application working for export
(mesh/rig/animation).

Gaia and I agreed export to SecondLife is a reasonable target to
support initially since its open-source and 2.4x python exporter was
compatible.
Once supported other applications can be made compatible, but always
keeping SecondLife working.
This way we always have at least _some_ happy collada users :).

I've mailed 2 developers already to see if they would be interested to
help with collada support, if there are others - don't be shy!
Please reply here or mail me direct.


On a related note, all our collada reports have been set as `TODO`,
and are now linked from a wiki page.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Todo/Import_Export#OpenCollada


Related Issues:
* A python script may be a better way to go for simple collada
support, one has been written but I didn't hear of anyone testing it
or any response as to how well it works.
** see thread http://markmail.org/message/5ovtzrs3a2red5ga
** uploaded to own FTP:
http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/io_scene_dae.zip
...weather to stick with OpenCollada is something I leave to Gaia and
other devs who want to be involved - whichever they can maintain best.

* What If nothing happens, bugs keep getting reported, none/very-few fixed???
...Then we may indeed remove OpenCollada support, the whole reason for
this mail is to encourage developers to become involved but if we cant
get 1 application well supported - export-only, then we better give up
on this format and consider the project failed.


Having an export-only python script supporting at least 1 of
application is quite a feasible as a technical target,
but also need to see there are devs who are prepared to take on this
task and be responsible for collada support in blender.

-- 
- Campbell