data converter

I’d like to convert Collada files to my game engine data file, where should I start? I thought the sample source codes in “Samples & Source Code” would be useful, wouldn’t they?
I also found FCDocument, FUtils, LibXML directories in my download files. Are they the COLLADA Parser by which I can fetch the COLLADA file data? If not, maybe I will write such a parser.

Start with the COLLADA schema and specification.

There is no source code in the 1.3 sample data posted on this forum.

That is ColladaMaya code from the sounds of it and also libxml2. You can learn more about this code at http://colladamaya.sourceforge.net/

Certainly you will need to write a translator if you are doing off-line tools to convert content to your game engine format, or an importer for fast path integration to your game engine.

Thanks marcus!
Another question: What COLLADA DOM is? How can we take use of it?

Yes, Thank you. Feeling Software provides such a COLLADA Parser, by which we can read COLLADA file easily. Can I use it as an importer of my converter and what I should do is to write a translater and output them as a my engine file data?

COLLADA DOM is a import/export utility that provides a C++ API to COLLADA. The front end is generated automatically from the COLLADA XML Schema.
You can compile the DOM from its sources for 1.3.1 or 1.4.0
It is available from source forge (please see announcement section)

About the FS import classes (FCDx classes), that’s the COLLADA parser that we keep open-source and use in our own projects, we’re currently in the process of formalizing it into a real library and it is constantly evolving: COLLADA 1.4 is not an easy beast to swallow whole ;).

If you are interested in an importer only and you want easy inter-operability with ColladaMaya or the 3dsMax COLLADA tools, I would suggest waiting for our first release of the library on our website. If you need to export COLLADA data or if you will need access to <extra> elements that aren’t part of the MAYA or MAX3D extensions, you should look at the COLLADA DOM.

Sincerely,

I’m a little confused about which one to choose, FCDx classes or COLLADA DOM? What I want to do is just convert COLLADA file format to my engine file format.
I’ve found that FCDx classes can parse the COLLADA file and read all the data. However, The COLLADA DOM provides a means for users to write translation code to transform data loaded into the COLLADA runtime database into data structures native to their own tools or engines. But it is much more complex than FCDx.
Give me some advice,will you?

Hi Guillaume-

Any estimates on when you might have a release of the library for others to play around with? I’m very interested in adding Collada support to Axiom and/or OGRE, and your library sounds like it would be a huge help.

-Don

Is the Collada DOM no good for you?

I didn’t mean to dis the DOM. Not having seen FeelingSoftware’s library, I have no clue whether it’s a better or worse fit for our needs than the DOM.

That said, Feeling Software probably has as much experience as anyone in the world at writing full-blown Collada translators. If they found their library useful for building translators then I’m inclinded to believe it’s worth taking a look at before getting too deep into architecting our own translators.

I think they were working with Collada before the DOM existed, hence their own library.

Hi Don,

We’re currently doing some pretty important refactoring of the library, re-dubbed FCollada, and evaluating what features are necessary for a first beta. We’ve added our own math and utilities classes, from the FeelingViewer, which is also greatly improving. We’ve added support for Unicode. I’m in the process of adding basic export support as well as full <extra> trees, for the people that want extensibility…

With that work still in-progress, we’re hoping to release a preview Win32 version within the next two weeks. It’ll be posted on our website. Do note that ColladaMaya is being ported to use FCollada. We’re considering porting the 3dsMax COLLADA tools to use FCollada also. All feedback/concerns are welcome :wink:

Sincerely,

I’m looking forward to your release for I’m working on a data converter to translate COLLADA data to my engine’s. It might help me a lot! :smiley:

Hello everybody,

I work under Linux, and I’m totally newie about COLLADA (which sounds great …).
I’ve got two questions :

  • I wanted to know where I can find sample source code in C/C++
  • It exists maxscript exporter/importer for COLLADA1.3, but COLLADA 1.4 is released just for windows ??

Thx, best regards,

Tux

That sounds fantastic. I notice you say you’re porting Maya to use FCollada. Does that mean you’d be adding import/export of <extra> data? Of course I’m also interested in Max support of <extra> data, but I’ll take whatever I can get :).

Max is Windows only, right? So I wouldn’t think there’d be a Max plugin for Linux.

the COLLADA-DOMshould work fine on Linux.

The Maya exporter exist for Linux (Max does not exist on Linux as far as I know). Blender and EQUINOX are other Linux tools that support COLLADA (1.3 version at this time)

hy here,

First thing : Collada is wonderful … Integrations templates are really useful… I wrote an importation module to our engine with them (using the registration …).
But to export from the engine … it’s another thing … I don’t understand how I can register my integration objects … “Programming Guide” say that createTO has to be called explicitly… but how … where … I’m lost …

If you can help me… it should be great …

Thx for advance … Tux