Unclarity in newparam

I am currently switching from an older version of the ColladaMaya plugin to a newer version, which now supports more of the Collada format. When looking at the new files, it appears to be using the newparam tag. In the Collada reference documentation, I cannot find the children the newparam tag can have and what their use is. Can anyone help me further?

If you go to “Ch. 6: COLLADA FX Reference” in the spec you’ll see the documentation for the <newparam> element, including a listing of all possible child elements. For <newparam> the allowable child elements vary depending on the profile the <newparam> appears in (<profile_COMMON>, <profile_CG>, etc).

A <newparam> is sort of like declaring a variable in a programming language. It gives a name (via the sid attribute), a type, and a value to some entity in the effect. You can then use it elsewhere by referring to its name.

This piece of documentation I could find, but in several collada files I found a sampler2D and surface inside a newparam. However this cannot be found in this piece of documenation. So I am wondering where I can find a complete list of possibilities within a newparam tag.

It lists “VALUE_TYPE” as one of the options for a child of a <newparam>, and it says to see the “Value Types” section for more info. You can find that section at the end of Ch. 6 (it’d be nice if it were hyperlinked), and in there you’ll see <sampler2D>, <surface>, and all the other possibilities.

Thanks… that is quite a list…

Yes it is. COLLADA FX is a powerful effects system. Is there something in particular you are trying to figure out that we can help you with?