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Collada can of worms. Turning the tables..
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Collada can of worms. Turning the tables.. // Tech Forum
Post by vnomad // Aug 16, 2008, 11:12pm
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vnomad
Total Posts: 14
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Greetings,
I've spent the last few weeks exploring the potential for trueSpace in a production pipeline mostly for architectural/landscape content.
On the whole I'm very much impressed with the new capabilities of the modeller on workspace side. It's actually a lot of fun to work with!
Getting textured objects properly exported, however, is a headache. Searching the forums I see a number of other users also having similar problems, with suggested solutions rather on the vague side.
In brief, I find that the geometry transfers fine, but texturing not. I'm using textureBump dx9 with an imagemap and normalmap on a simple cube. I see these elements in the exported collada file, but so far none of the importers I have tried (UU3D v3 pro, XSI 6.5, MAX 9, Flux Studio, Blender 2.46) find the image and normalmap. When I load the textures manually things such as UV tiling and sometimes normalmapping in the second UV set is problematic. Editing the init pointer (url) syntax in the Collada file for these images has not helped, so far.
Rather than posting my interminable cans of worms I've decided that turning the tables, in a sense, would be more helpful for all concerned. In other words:
Could someone be so kind as to post a working example scenario of textured objects exported via Collada, preferably with normalmapping?
Overall-swell-guy-Jack seems to be up-and-doing in this area. Do you actually get your (multiple) UVs, imagetextures, normalmaps all showing up in, say, UU3D straight from the tS' Collada :confused:
I'll be continuing my quest here on this side, of course, but it would be VERY ecouraging to have some concrete affirmation that Collada export from TS actually works in the "real world".
I see numerous "this should/ought work" but not many actual examples.
Most likely it's something utterly stupidly simple that I'm missing . . . hopefully. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 17, 2008, 9:39am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Nope. My textures don't show up in UU3d. It's difficult to tell if that is a problem with TS or the importers on the other programs.
The problem becomes, what does it matter if TS did it correct if none of the other programs can read it that way. :rolleyes:
What is needed is to compare Collada files with working texture imports to TS Collada files and see what is different. They are text files, so it should be relatively easy to compare them.
My plugin sidesteps the whole issue, since I just use the Autodesk FBX SDK to read and generate Collada files. I figure that most apps will conform with however Autodesk decides to do it. ;) |
Post by vnomad // Aug 17, 2008, 11:24am
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vnomad
Total Posts: 14
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Thanks, Jack!
I've made some tS Collada progress here now.
First, I tore all my hair out and reinstalled trueSpace. That cleanded out the "hexed" %3A urlencoding syntax in the image init. (no idea why)
tS collada puts the images in a subfolder and references them there. This UU3D does not like. I copied them up to the same folder as the DAE and changed the references in the collada (just a quick search-and-replace). Bingo bango bongo, UU3D gets the imagetextures :jumpy:
Incidentally, Pinecoast software makes a free collada viewer, and also an excellent collada-to-x3d translator that reads tS collada directly.
So, now I feel I'm half way there. Still working on getting tiled textures and normalmaps to do their thing right.
But maybe (hopefully . . ) I'm wasting my time since you'll be tackling all this, and then some in your forthcoming utility.
In any case, I guess I'll post my progress here.
Animation will be next then. Apparently UU3D will tackle this from tS collada fairly well? |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 17, 2008, 11:54am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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The quick experiments I've made, UU3D does import TS skeletal animation exported via Collada. But going from UU3D to other formats may be problematic depending on the particular exporter plugin for UU3D.
Good to know about the directories. That sounds like an importer problem. I think an option to include the textures in the same directory as the geometry file could solve that though.
Unfortunately my plugin won't be a free solution though ;) |
Post by RichLevy // Aug 17, 2008, 12:41pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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As Jack pointed out UU3D does import TS Collada, but minus the textures. I was able to load them manually in UU3D... If I put the model in the texture folder, should that make this more flexible? I am just trying to pick up what is being said here...
Unfortunately I am missing some of the programs I was using to test this before. I know PSCS3Extended still works... let me see if I can get XSI v6 up and running to test Tankgirl with.
Rich |
Post by RichLevy // Aug 17, 2008, 12:51pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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TS Collada Experiments:
Export the same Tankgirl model with rig and handles save as a TS Collada file
Keep all the default settings
Import DAE into Modo v3.02
Error, Modo does not like the file
Go back into TS and remove the skeleton node
Re-save Tankgirl to library
Export new Tankgirl with no rig to Collada dae. In settings make sure rig, animations are unchecked
Import DAE into Modo v3.02
File comes in minus textures
Manually reload textures in Modo to mesh.
Rich |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 17, 2008, 1:11pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Seems like most Collada importers don't support animation yet. :(
Also looks like they expect the textures to be in the same directory as the geometry file. This may be because the importer does full path checking first then checks in the local directory if it doesn't find it at the location specified in the file. Also the hex characters in the TS Collada file might be an issue with Unicode character sets -- which would be something for the TS devs to fix in their exporter. |
Post by RichLevy // Aug 17, 2008, 1:23pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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Well as far as animation goes, Modo does not use it with their DAE importer... or maybe I better do some research before I say that for sure... Let me see what I can come up with.
I remember I was able to get XSI Foundation to import DAE back when we were testing this way back (pre 7.5)... I'll check into that over the next day or 2...
Game engines are outta my skill range... I don't think I have any that I could test it with... I'll see what is freely available to play around with anyway.
Thanks for the clarification of the folder's, that helps out some.
Rich |
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