Collada and gui

[jacmoe]

I think Plunger is worth checking out! Thanks for sharing it, Azathoth and nowere!

If it isn't added to the content creation section of the wiki, it really should be.

[nowhere]

If it isn't added to the content creation section of the wiki, it really should be.

Where exactly would that go? It looks like this should go into OGRE Exporters, but the content of that page looks like sorted by programs, not by file formats.

Seeing that people outside of WF are interested, I'll see if I can fix a couple of usability issues and push out an official release.

[Azatoth]

Ok, to clarify here: Plunger convert into OgreXML, not .mesh format directly.

[HCodeur]

"Nowhere" i ll have a better look on Plunger (see how it s working....) and contact you after. I ll help you if you want

A collada <-> Ogre xml converter can be very interresting for Ogre community i think

At later

[nowhere]

I've added an installer and some documentation on how to use Plunger to CVS.
Assuming I didn't break anything while fixing the up axis logic (I'm using a different up axis in my program), I will push the 0.0.1 release tomorrow.

That should make it easier for you folks to test things.

[nowhere]

I've just released the first alpha version of Plunger. Given that it actually kind of works, I've decided to call it 0.1.0 instead of 0.0.1.

See the release announcement for a download link.

Thanks for your interest, it helped me to finally get this release out of the door.

[nowhere]

I've just released the first alpha version of Plunger. Given that it actually kind of works, I've decided to call it 0.1.0 instead of 0.0.1.

See the release announcement for a download link.

I have decided to move the project to Google project hosting, as that provides an issue tracker. Also, plunger is useful for people outside of WorldForge. Moving it to a standalone page makes this more clear.

See the Plunger link in my signature about where to get plunger now. (The old link will still work, of course.)

[Dom]

I think COLLADA does support skeletal animation, check "Skin" in the specs:

http://www.khronos.org/files/collada_spec_1_4.pdf

In the thread it was stated, that some ppl think COLLADA is not optimized etc. There have been some attempts to establish a standard data format for the 3d DCC world. Collada is something that is finally getting supported by many bigger DCC programs. (Other formats are FBX, universal 3D (u3d), 3dXML, VRML, X3D etc.). Therefore I think this is something very positive.

Consider it as what it is: an exchange format. For the "authoring/development" process it's a good thing to support as you need high iteration times (just remember when customers asking for many little tweaks here and there at a milestone presentation). If you want to release your project, you can always have a custom build step converting all your authoring-files (slower to load but easier to handle) into the run-time optimized formats for release and delivery.

Don't push COLLADA away just because it's not optimized for fast loading or you feel it's hyped. There is a solid reason for it's existence - some will use it, some not.

[nowhere]

Consider it as what it is: an exchange format. For the "authoring/development" process it's a good thing to support as you need high iteration times (just remember when customers asking for many little tweaks here and there at a milestone presentation). If you want to release your project, you can always have a custom build step converting all your authoring-files (slower to load but easier to handle) into the run-time optimized formats for release and delivery.

Don't push COLLADA away just because it's not optimized for fast loading or you feel it's hyped. There is a solid reason for it's existence - some will use it, some not.

That's exactly the reason why we decided to use Collada as an exchange format at WorldForge. I just think that trying to load it into a game engine directly is a bad idea. That's why I wrote a standalone tool to convert it to something else that can be loaded more efficiently.

[tgraupmann]

It was my impression that Collada doesn't do skeletal animation yet. Anyone who's looked into the Collada specs more recently with a comment on that?

I just read that Collada supports basic skeletal animations now:

It is now possible to animate rather basic skeletal objects and export them. Importing animated skeletal objects does not work yet. Also you can now export the materials applied to a textured object. The object must be textured and you must have the "Use UV" option selected for this to work.

http://colladablender.illusoft.com/cms/ ... tion/6/45/

As for converting from collada XML to Ogre XML, you just need a simple XSLT XML transform to do such a thing.

[nikki]

So, the argument here is about using Collada only for separate meshes or for an entire scene?

[tgraupmann]

So, the argument here is about using Collada only for separate meshes or for an entire scene?

I wouldn't use the collada format for in game. Collada is a good transport app between your modeling apps. When the asset is ready to be used in game, just use a transform to convert from Collada to an Ogre.mesh.xml and then use the OgreXMLConverter.

A similar transform could be used like this:
http://www.highend3d.com/downloads/tool ... to_bvh.xsl

I see several groups having the same discussion:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?=&p=24534

I'll just start a new post about doing the transform which would be relatively easy.

[zingbat]

It was my impression that Collada doesn't do skeletal animation yet. Anyone who's looked into the Collada specs more recently with a comment on that?

Collada does everything including physics and particle systems trough physics, materials, meshes, scenes, any type of animation. Plus it is support by the major modelers and game houses.

I think the best route would be to create a tool or lib to load Collada files and create the necessary .mesh files in a cache dir. That doesn't mean the original files would have to be disposed and. The ResourceGroupManager could be upgraded to deal with different versions of the same file in different formats. This way it would give priority to models in a cache dir using the .mesh format before looking into the Collada files.