[Bf-committers] Annoucement: Better Collada Exporter for Blender!

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

I hereby declare this thread to be closed. 
As for any patch we will wait for fair reviews and reports from the field.

Feedback can go here:
https://developer.blender.org/T41071

Thanks,

-Ton-

--------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands



On 13 Oct, 2014, at 10:00, Sergey Sharybin wrote:

> "My exporter works, period" that's only valid in context of gobot. Taking
> the example above, missing materials when importing to unity i would never
> call it "works, period".
> 
> I've got serious doubts full feature set is what is priority for us,
> supporting 3rd party software for interchange is the priority i'd say.
> 
> I'd say just call it Gobot Exporter and put to the contrib? Once it'll have
> the same compatibility level as the current exporter it could be considered
> a replacement for the opencollada exporter. An no, claiming that other
> engines does wrong collada is not acceptable here.
> 
> Also, having just a python exporter is not gonna to help getting away from
> opencollada, for this we'll need an importer as well.
> 
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 2:02 AM, Juan Linietsky <reduzio at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> Juan, i don't expect a silver bullet and i don't even believe in this.
>> But
>>> 3 days ago you claimed "This plugin is very battle-tested, and files
>>> written by it can be read by most DCCs and engine", now you say "You
>> can't
>>> write an exporter thinking that you will please every importer out
>> there".
>>> This two things i can't really link together. So the questions so far:
>>> 
>>> 
>> Why not? they are not mutually exclusive. The problem is that, again, you
>> are expecting a silver bullet.
>> 
>> When I claim it works, it means they can import the files, the problem is
>> that Collada support in most engines and DCCs is very incomplete in
>> general. If you export exactly that is supported by the importer, it works.
>> If you export more, it generally doesn't, and the engine/DCC will crash and
>> burn. My Collada exporter basically tries to mimic the same exporter format
>> that OpenCollada Maya uses, which is why it's so compatible (as that is the
>> most popular plugin used).
>> 
>> So, if you want me to explain it in a different way, it should work as well
>> as the best collada exporter it exists as the moment, but at the same time
>> that's not necessarily good.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> - Is current blender's importer capable of importing the exported by the
>>> addon scene?
>>> 
>> 
>> Yes, but it crashes in some scenes that use complex stuff such as
>> morphs+skeletons. This is a problem of Blender's importer, not the
>> exporter, as it exhibits the same behavior with other exporters (such as
>> Maya Opencollada). Animations work fine, but animation clips do not work
>> (which I believe are not supported anyway by the importer).
>> 
>> 
>>> - Which engines/software are supported with the current state of the
>> addon?
>>> 
>> 
>> Tested Unity, works with most stuff but does not support clips, materials,
>> etc. Unity should fix this.
>> I know people used it with the Amnesia engine, and with Crytek and it
>> worked pretty well.
>> 
>> 
>>> - What are the plans about extending supported 3d party apps?
>>> 
>> 
>> As I said before, the collada format exported is based in OpenCollada Maya,
>> which is the best Collada exporter. It does not do anything weird nor
>> imposes another way of exporting the format. If a 3rd party app does not
>> work it's most likely the fault of that app, not because my exporter needs
>> to be more compatible.
>> 
>> 
>>> - What are the plans about importer?
>>> 
>> 
>> None.
>> 
>> 
>>> - Who's gonna to maintain the code?
>>> 
>> 
>> I develop and maintain the code.
>> 
>> 
>>> - Does someone from blender users tested the addon?
>>> 
>>> 
>> Plenty of users to export to Godot, a few other users to export to other
>> engines, but they have no way to know it exists unless it's integrated as
>> core. I already explained this well enough.
>> 
>> 
>>> But maybe the biggest one to be answered first: what are the benefits for
>>> blender from the current state of the addon?
>>> 
>>> 
>> -My exporter works, period. If you think it doesn't then I leave the burden
>> of proof to you, and I take responsibility to fix anything that might not.
>> -It supports the full Collada feature set (except physics, but no one uses
>> that).
>> -Has better export filters.
>> -Can export multiple actions as clips, and bakes constraints on export.
>> Without this exporting characters or interactive scenes is a pain in the
>> ass.
>> -It's only 1400 lines of python code.
>> -Developer did not abandon it, nor does plan to abandon it.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-committers mailing list
>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> With best regards, Sergey Sharybin
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers