Collada's Successor

[mistythunder]

In Blender 4.2 Collada has been marked as Legacy. That means that Blender support for it will soon be dropped. Is there a successor to it that can be used to upload meshes into SL? How well is that successor working right now?

[Nexii Malthus]

They have been working on gLTF uploads for meshes which will introduce some new features with it, but that's basically the successor to it. Information is a bit scarce since it's very much alpha and details aren't confirmed yet.

FYI: gLTF has already been implemented for PBR materials but it's actually a format that was intended for 3D scenes and models.

 

People might be eager for it but considering how messy PBR materials been I hope it bakes in the oven a bit more to be well done considering the impact it can have. It could streamline mesh uploads, offer some scripting support for moving nodes in a scene and if I recall correctly allow custom skeletons to be defined instead of having to use the SL bento skeleton for animesh.

Edited August 5 by Nexii Malthus

[Chic Aeon]

Just wanted to say that Blender is not a MANDATORY update so creators can stay on whatever version they feel comfortable with and keep exporting as DAE while the switch happens. And I haven't seen "when" DAE files will be no longer available in Blender just "sometime in the future".  So if there is any definite answer it would be good to know.   

[PheebyKatz]

On 8/4/2024 at 7:14 PM, Nexii Malthus said:

...and if I recall correctly allow custom skeletons to be defined instead of having to use the SL bento skeleton...

If this actually happens, and it works even halfway decently, it will be a very tall hurdle cleared for content creators. There's a lot you can do with the SL skeleton if you know how to edit it and upload the edits correctly, but yeah. That would be freaking awesome. Anyone could legitimately make anything they wanted.

Edited August 10 by PheebyKatz

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The Lindens have been working on a GLTF importer for mesh for some months. There's a Project viewer with local import, but it's still a work in progress like @Nexii Malthus said.

Custom skeletons will be a thing, the most recent limit was 340 bones (or 1000+ based on GPU) for rigged meshes and no limit for static meshes.

GLTF can include multiple animations as well, and each animation can affect multiple meshes. These are two animated GLTF scenes:

Edited August 10 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Aquila Kytori]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:47 AM, Chic Aeon said:

And I haven't seen "when" DAE files will be no longer available in Blender just "sometime in the future".  So if there is any definite answer it would be good to know.   

Hi Chic

I did a little research and according to Monti29 ( Bastien Montagne )

"Starting from Blender 4.2LTS release, Collada file format support will be marked as legacy. This means that only minimal maintenance effort will be spent on it from now on, and that it will be removed in a later release (either 4.5 LTS, or 5.0)."

https://devtalk.blender.org/t/moving-collada-i-o-to-legacy-status/34621/39

 

The scheduled release dates for Blender 4.5 LTS and 5.0 are  July 2025 and November 2025.  https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/compatibility/

So the answer would seem to be the second half of 2025.

[Chic Aeon]

9 hours ago, Aquila Kytori said:

Hi Chic

I did a little research and according to Monti29 ( Bastien Montagne )

"Starting from Blender 4.2LTS release, Collada file format support will be marked as legacy. This means that only minimal maintenance effort will be spent on it from now on, and that it will be removed in a later release (either 4.5 LTS, or 5.0)."

https://devtalk.blender.org/t/moving-collada-i-o-to-legacy-status/34621/39

 

The scheduled release dates for Blender 4.5 LTS and 5.0 are  July 2025 and November 2025.  https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/compatibility/

So the answer would seem to be the second half of 2025.

Thanks.  I of course am not doing much these days but I was on a thread somewhere (not sure it was this oe) and there seemed to be a lot of folks rigging using our "antique favorite" LOL.  So kinda when Win11 takes over for good (I am planning on NOT switching there on my big machine perhaps until the big guy dies. I have it on my notebook and not a fan :D.  

 

Appreciate the info. Currently working on amulti-room igloo LOL.  Eclectic is my middle name.  EDIT: Actually more of a classy snow fort

Edited August 11 by Chic Aeon
adding info