[Bf-committers] Importing Assets: FBX VS Collada

[Gaia]

On 27.04.2014 22:51, Stefano Corazza wrote:
> A negligible fraction of our paying customers is using Blender. Why?
> Because you cannot reliably import assets from any other 3D
> package/service!! So we are not a "stakeholder" in the strict sense but
> would love to help the students/hobbyists/indie community that is using
> Blender.

This is exactly my reasoning why i stepped into this topic in first place.
I personally wanted to keep Blender useful for Second life users.
And having an intact Collada Exporter is a key feature. And i am happy
that i could reach this goal for Second Life.

On the other side, having an intact Collada Importer was not such a big
necessity (for us),  so i originally did not plan to put effort into this
section as well.  However i actually DID put effort into the importer
because i found it was only a half job to make the exporter work,
but keep the importer behind.

However, the major problem of Collada is that its too versatile.
So all you can really try to achieve is to support the Collada exporter
for a couple of selected 3D applications. I was attempting to do this for
Maya. But i found the time that i need to put into this effort was just
"too much". I mean, i do not need to have an Importer that works like
a charm for every Collada file in the world...

> The best option is to finish the job on the current one that is almost there.
> What I can offer is test cases and QA service for the last 10% of the
> Collada importer/exporter fix (support of multiple meshes/bind poses)
> and Mixamo stocks as payment.

A good friend told me once that "the last 10% of a software implementation
takes about 90 % of the total implementation time"...

I am not sure if this is just a saying, or more like a common rule and 
if that
applies also to the Collada module. But what i know for sure is, that a 
Collada
Importer is way more complicated than an exporter.

But ... well... Now what is "Mixamo stocks as payment" exactly ?

cheers,
Gaia