Collada

[Dennis]

Andy/Inivis,

I pulled the Blue Mars dev kit so I could run the import with AC3D test data, and I think I've found the issues.

I've attached 2 AC3D Collada exports - one is a textured triangle created with AC3D (actri.dae) and the other is an edited version of that triangle (actri_EDITED.dae). The edited version contained indented/spaced/commented code that handles material/texture data that Blue Mars was erroring on.

Note that these changes also allow the materials and textures to show up when I import this into LightWave --- without the changes, the material colors/textures don't show. I can't guarantee that LightWave is doing everything correctly, of course, but it's the most trustworthy Collada importer that I own.

The changes that were made to make this import correctly into LightWave follow. Just to stress this, the import already worked for geometry, but materials/textures weren't showing up, and UV maps weren't being applied.

1. Added a <library_images> tag to specify a texture.
2. Updated the <library_effects>'s <profile_COMMON> tag to describe the texture format/source.
3. Updated the <library_effects>'s <profile_COMMON>'s common techique <diffuse> tag to include the texture description.
4. Updated the <visual_scene>'s <instance_geometry> tag to bind the material and texture coordinates to the mesh.

Beyond this, I made one other change that may be a problem with the Blue Mars importer. If the texture coordinate accessor is assigned to X/Y, Blue Mars apparently gets confused, probably with the position or normal array, but setting these coordinates to any other value worked (I used S/T). However, I don't see that using a different nomenclature than X/Y hurts anything, and I also notice that other Collada exporters do the same.

Gus,

I'm not sure whether these changes will be trivial to introduce into the exporter - it was very easy when the geometry consisted of only a single triangle, but in order to support more complex scenes it might not be that easy.

Here's hoping it turns out to be an easy fix, though .

Dennis

[Gus]

Lightwave along with other 3d applications as I previously posted are officially listed of being compatible with Blue Mars. As long AC3D's .DAE doesn't work with Blue Mars it will not make it to the Blue Mars list.

The edited version you supplied did work........

Originally Posted by Dennis

Andy/Inivis,

I pulled the Blue Mars dev kit so I could run the import with AC3D test data, and I think I've found the issues.

I've attached 2 AC3D Collada exports - one is a textured triangle created with AC3D (actri.dae) and the other is an edited version of that triangle (actri_EDITED.dae). The edited version contained indented/spaced/commented code that handles material/texture data that Blue Mars was erroring on.

Note that these changes also allow the materials and textures to show up when I import this into LightWave --- without the changes, the material colors/textures don't show. I can't guarantee that LightWave is doing everything correctly, of course, but it's the most trustworthy Collada importer that I own.

The changes that were made to make this import correctly into LightWave follow. Just to stress this, the import already worked for geometry, but materials/textures weren't showing up, and UV maps weren't being applied.

1. Added a <library_images> tag to specify a texture.
2. Updated the <library_effects>'s <profile_COMMON> tag to describe the texture format/source.
3. Updated the <library_effects>'s <profile_COMMON>'s common techique <diffuse> tag to include the texture description.
4. Updated the <visual_scene>'s <instance_geometry> tag to bind the material and texture coordinates to the mesh.

Beyond this, I made one other change that may be a problem with the Blue Mars importer. If the texture coordinate accessor is assigned to X/Y, Blue Mars apparently gets confused, probably with the position or normal array, but setting these coordinates to any other value worked (I used S/T). However, I don't see that using a different nomenclature than X/Y hurts anything, and I also notice that other Collada exporters do the same.

Gus,

I'm not sure whether these changes will be trivial to introduce into the exporter - it was very easy when the geometry consisted of only a single triangle, but in order to support more complex scenes it might not be that easy.

Here's hoping it turns out to be an easy fix, though .

Dennis

[Imsaho]

I'm pretty interested in this, for the same reason as Gus. Been looking at AC3D as a collada output for Blue Mars.

If it's any help, there is this post from Blue Mars admin. It's about sketchup but may apply here...

The issue is not that Blue Mars doesn't support untextured meshes, but that SketchUp exports untextured meshes without vertex normals and UVs. Blue Mars importer doesn't support the import of meshes without vertex normals or UVs. FBX Converter is probably adding normals and UVs in the conversion process.

The exact details of what is and isn't supported can be found at the Blue Mars COLLADA compatibility guide

I'll keep watching this thread :-)

[Andy]

Thanks to Dennis for a lot of hard work, we now have a new Collada exporter.

Please download the attached Windows .zip file, unzip and put the collada_export.p file into the plugins folder. This plugin patches the existing exporter of AC3D 6.5.

Let us know here if it fixes the problems you were getting before.

[Gus]

On first round test it passed, will test more along the way.... thanks for the BIG cash box!!

Originally Posted by Andy

Thanks to Dennis for a lot of hard work, we now have a new Collada exporter.

Please download the attached Windows .zip file, unzip and put the collada_export.p file into the plugins folder. This plugin patches the existing exporter of AC3D 6.5.

Let us know here if it fixes the problems you were getting before.

[Gus]

For your viewing pleasure I made this video demoing AC3D for Blue Mars... target audience is 3d artists on a budget and want to build for Blue Mars...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XH_bzFI_VE

Check it out, I was showcased!!
http://blue-news.com/category/showcase/

[Andy]

Great video - very well put together.

Have you tried it with more detailed/complicated models?