Mesh

[Masami Kuramoto]

Due to numerous incompatibilities between existing COLLADA importers/exporters making the format largely useless, Blender developers are now considering to entirely remove COLLADA support from the main code base and official builds.

http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2012-January/035006.html

[Pussycat Catnap Member]

Well that just kinda kills it for SL mesh now don't it?

Why did SL go for collada and not something common like obj?

[Chosen Few]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Well that just kinda kills it for SL mesh now don't it?

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Nothing's been decided yet, so nobody panic yet.  If worse comes to worst, and the Blender devs do cease official support for COLLADA,  I'm sure enterprising SL residents will just create their own COLLADA exporter for Blender, and release it to the public, just like they did for the excellent sculpty tools that so many Blender users now enjoy.

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Why did SL go for collada and not something common like obj?

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OBJ wouldn't be suitable.  Among other shortcomings, it doesn't support rigging. 

COLLADA was an excellent choice in that it is open source, it is currently supported by a very wide range of 3D modeling programs, and it's a very rich format with support for just about all the major scene components needed for effective transfer between programs.

[Gaia Clary Advisor]

As Chosen tells. Don't panic ! Nothing decided,everything possible

[Raz Welles]

I wonder if a python-only solution would be feasible, as it would allow the exporter to become an add-on and not need to deal with compile issues.

Although there's something to be said for using the OpenCollada library and being on the same page as all the other major packages right now.

[Linda Brynner Member]

I never understood the choice of Collada. It is an open source collaboration of some former game developers. To me it appears a very vague and under developed one looking at the Collada website too and reading wikis about it. OBJ is the professional standard of all 3D tools, and even SL uses it for objects and avatars as far as i could see. Strange that Collada choice was from my perspective.

[Gaia Clary Advisor]

.obj does not support weighting and armatures as far as i know.

[Domino Marama]

Chosen Few wrote:

Nothing's been decided yet, so nobody panic yet.  If worse comes to worst, and the Blender devs do cease official support for COLLADA,  I'm sure enterprising SL residents will just create their own COLLADA exporter for Blender, and release it to the public, just like they did for the excellent sculpty tools that so many Blender users now enjoy.

Are you looking over my shoulder?

Oddly just before this issue came up, I'd just started digging into the Blender code to fix some Collada bugs. I do tend to agree that the current implemention in Blender is awkward and in the long term best replaced. So instead of fixing bugs, I've started on a Python implementation of a Collada exporter. And getting it working for SL is the first priority - it'll be free to all Primstar 2 and Avastar owners - I hope to have it ready before Collada support is dropped from Blender

[Kavorka]

even if it is dropped, you can just use an older version of blender that has it.  no new features and fixes, but it works well for me now.

[Drongle McMahon Advisor]

Hi Domino. Why can't the old illusoft exporter from 2.49b be adapted to work with the new Blender versions? Have the Blender internals changed too much?