Collada 1.4.1 tool (importer and exporter)

Share with us how are you using the powerrrr of the force

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Collada 1.4.1 tool (importer and exporter)

Postby Julio Jerez » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:55 pm

This is my first demo using Newton. After 3 an a half years and 4 releases it was about time.

http://www.newtondynamics.com/downloads ... er.msi.zip

With this we are hoping you joint int the bandwagon of physics standardization.
It is not fully operational yet but I will be adding functionality on demand.
This will be the tool I will used for helping some of the appprentices on the Darth art of the Powerrrrr of the force, to more creaturely archive their goals.
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Postby aidave2 » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:53 pm

Neat scenes! I really like the mouse selection, and object dragging. It will be nice to know how to do that properly! 8)
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Postby bakura10 » Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:20 am

Take a look at the tutorials on the SDK (Utility functions ;)). I'm making my own dragging function, it's not easy :(.
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Postby chocopie » Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:00 pm

will collada be fully supported by NGD?

i'm curious why collada is so so big.
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Postby Julio Jerez » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:05 pm

Are you interested in Collada support? I put lots of work into it but I do not really feel any motivation to continue it.
Our friends on the Collada organization are not too thrill about physics engines others than the one they endorse supporting the Collada format.
They think that we demining the prestige of the organization and last thing I want to do is to make waves for them.
It seems that the Collada group is only interested in engines that are used by Big Companies and are using console support. And it also appears that they consider themself more than a format starndard, it is like they consider themselve an official Institution in charge that regulates what and how Physics show be written, kind of like the IEEE of Physics standards.
https://collada.org/public_forum/viewto ... 1c61d63894
I still do not understand the reasoning behind that logic, but it appears that is how it is in an arbitrary and irrational way.


What do you mean so Big?
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Postby chocopie » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:21 am

well, i guess the answer is ... no.
what i really want is a good editor or plugin for maya or 3dmax, which is hard to find.
i'm lately working on a race game. lot's of scene and objects are required. if physics and graphics are integrate in one conf file/xml, with one editor, would be very useful. i saw some good sample such as Racer, 3xtreme that shows how to do it. (sandbox mode is good). but neither is open source, and no doc for there own xml data format.

i'd rather use irredit and write a physics plugin, than write a new editor. collada is just anather option. either is long term work i think.
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Postby Julio Jerez » Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:39 am

chocopie wrote:i'd rather use irredit and write a physics plugin, than write a new editor. collada is just anather option. either is long term work i think.

In that case I recomend to you using your own format.
Collada is only useful if and only if you are going to transfer files from authoring program to other authoring programs, and this is only truth in theory since it is not true Collada file are transferable from package to package.
It turn out that the specification are so convoluted that every developer makes his own interpretation and that
interpretation is usually incorrect to the point that it do not even pass the specification test.
It is quite possible to make ambigus files since Collada is just a wrapper over XML parcel, therefore the grammar is not inforced.

At the time I wrote the Tool Newton is tryed to make 100% Collada 1.4.1 compliance and that same fact made it incompatible with all of the Collada plug-in made by the experts.
This is because the format is so difficult that most people result in writing their own format using the user data extension,
so what you get is a xml file with the collada header but that in fact is not a unified format.

I brought this incompatibility issue to the collada forum
https://collada.org/public_forum/viewtopic.php?t=579&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=93c794fa8f69b07d4e2e2b5c736c99ea
Just to be treated with hostility and denial.
Believe me you will better making your own grammar using XML.
Only if you are making a commercial plug-in for other people to share data I would advice Collada and even then it will be easier to start with your own proprietary format.

Callada in my option if one of those Dream from some technocrat with in some office that somehow believe his idea are so good that everybody show adopt them,
but the format is bloated Mediocre xml file at its best.
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Postby chocopie » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:07 am

good point, thank you very much.

I decide to use my own format.

NGD is great.

the license text is WONDERFUL too.
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Postby Stucuk » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:49 pm

IMO Newton having example code that can perfectly load COLLADA would be a benefit to newton as it would help anyone who would want to use the format. (i personaly don't want to use COLLADA)
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Postby Sweenie » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:36 am

perfectly load COLLADA


Make that, perfectly load 3DMax COLLADA, MSI COLLADA & Blender COLLADA. :twisted:
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Postby Stucuk » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:24 pm

Does each editor write the files different? Or do they just ignore things when loading them?
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Postby Leadwerks » Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:45 pm

Julio, what is your final opinion of Collada? I am about to start with it, and it is very intimidating. It seems like the kind of thing I could spend a month on and then find out that there isn't really any way to get around some bug someone else won't fix.
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Postby Yezide » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:30 am

Leadwerks:
I am using Collada for my game, alltough not the latest version. And my biggest problem is that collada is updated every now and then with updates that make older version not work, allthough I am not sure how often that is now, since it should be very stable. Other then that Collada is quite good and the exporters available for Max and Maya work very good, even though I use version almost half a year old.

It will take a little time to get it into your engine, especially animation which can be a complicated beast for several reasons. You should be able to get in the basic mesh support in a day or two though. Since it is XML it is very easy to parse files and check how they are built up.

As for physics, that is something I have not gotten into yet and am using my own system where you simply name primitives.

I also use collada for all maps btw.
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