SoftImage Collada imp/exp weirdness

I installed the SoftImage Collada plugins available here. I followed the instructions specified in the manual and I see the new Collada import/export options, but when I attempt to export the scene to Collada (even an empty scene), no file is created.

I get the following in the little log area in the bottom left, but I don’t think it provides any useful info:
ExportCollada(“c:\default.xml”, 0, false, 2, 1, false, 0.01);
DeleteObj(“ExportColladaOptions”);

I don’t think the double backslash in the file name is the problem. The importer has pretty much the same issues. I can’t get it to open a Collada document.

Any ideas? Tomorrow I might try to compile the plugin and debug to see what’s wrong.

Also I’ll email the SoftImage guy that writes the Collada plugin… have to run now.

Thanks,
Steve

This is interesting: “… sometimes a faulty installation can lead to the COLLADA plugin to not work in XSI version 5.”

So it seems to be a known problem. Is it a faulty installation of the Collada plugins or a faulty installaction of XSI that’s causing the problem? Any ideas? (Yes, I’ll email ajclaude for an answer :slight_smile: )

Make sure you don’t copy the xsiftk.dll file in the plugins directory.

you should get the following message in the log window

'INFO : 4004 - Begin: Export .xsi file
'INFO : 4005 - End: Export .xsi file
'INFO : Start exporting Collada file
'INFO : End exporting Collada file

Let me know if that works

That did the trick, thanks! Removing the file fixed both the XSI Foundation Collada plugins and the XSI Viewer Collada plugins. I’m guessing XSI 4.x requires the dll but 5.x doesn’t. You may want to consider updating the manual to reflect this. Thanks again!

Ok, I figured I’d make a post of all the issues I encountered when working with the SoftImage Collada plugins.

Material problem:[ul]- Create a new scene and add a sphere.

  • Give the sphere a phong material and make it red.
  • Export to Collada.
  • New scene.
  • Import the Collada model you just exported. Notice that the material doesn’t show up right. It’s grey instead of red.[/ul]
    In SoftImage <extra> data blocks map to SoftImage’s custom parameter sets. I banged on this mapping a bit and found some issues:[ul]- Custom parameter sets attached to materials aren’t exported to <extra> blocks. They aren’t exported at all.
  • <extra> block IDs aren’t persisted perfectly. When I import/export them SoftImage changes the ID on me. It’d certainly be nice if the ID remained the same.
  • <param>s in Collada have a name and ID, amongst other attributes. SoftImage exports an ID for each param, but not a name. Conversely, on import, it should look for a name on the <param> and use that as the param name, instead of parsing the ID and looking for a param name in there.
  • <extra> elements in the node hierarchy aren’t imported correctly. For a simple example, see this model, which was created by exporting from SoftImage. It contains one <extra> block attached to a node. When I import back into SoftImage, I get three unique custom parameter sets corresponding to my <extra> data. There should only be one.[/ul]- Steve

Abit off topic, but have you tried to export a object with a UV map + texture map in the latest collada plugin yet? Just wanted to know if it works(UV map gets exported, texture gets exported?).

UV coords + textures get exported fine for me.

Another problem: Surface primitives don’t get exported at all. Polygon mesh primitives get exported of course. IIRC Collada doesn’t have surfaces yet, but can’t you export a triangulated version of the surface?