[FONT=arial][SIZE=2][COLOR=Silver]1. It seems that current version of Collada (Crosswalk 2.6) export shapekey, but not animated weightmap.
(Source : source : http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/x...esforCOLLADA.htm#Rmj64055)
Is there a workaround to make it works ?

2. XSI exports phong materials, but do not handle OpenGL Realtime (OGL_draw, OGL_shade… ). It’s strange that Collada exporter that is mostly use for 3d engine do not export Realtime Materials (as Ogre exporter do). Is there any project to support Realtime Materials (with OGL pass, and not necessary fragment/vertex shaders) ?

Thank You[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

Hi,

1. You’re talking about morph animation right? The COLLADA 1.4.1 file format itself does not support morph animation. It’s definitely on the radar for future versions. We could export the morph animation as an XSI specific extra also but we did not do that yet. We do export them in dotXSI 6.0 though.

2. You should look into using the CGFx reatime shader. We do export this realtime shader in COLLADA either as an embedded COLLADA FX or as an external reference thru the nVidia NV_import extra. Regarding the OGL_draw and OGL_shade, again, COLLADA 1.4.1 does not support node base shaders and we did not made XSI specific extra neither. We do export them in dotXSI 6.0 also.

LB

Thank You for your answer,
About shape animation : I hope it will be soon suported it’s a usefull function.
About CgFX : thank you for the tip. Where could we find realtime shaders in that format for spherical reflection, normal map ?

I have read this in Ogre3D forum :

Max and Maya’s exporting is rather similar (Feeling Software developed both exporters) but XSI’s exporter was developed inhouse which causes quite a few problems (breaking the specification and whatever).

This is the reason why they do not want to support XSI in the next release of their Collada Plugin (it’s a bad news for XSI users because XSI’s Ogre exporter does not export the whole scene).
I have also noticed that Softimage’s Collada was nicely supported by few softwares :
- Stonetrip Shiva 1.5
- Pinecoast SwTranslator
- Ultimate unwrap (issue with scale animation),
- Photoshop CS3 Extended.

But with other 3D applications there are still some problems compared to Collada generated with 3ds max :
- Papervision (althought since the texture fix it’s a bit better, but not as good as with 3ds max collada)
- Deep Exploration 5.0
- Open Scene Graph 2.4
- Acrobat 9 pro ext.
- Orealia 1.5
- C4 Engine
...

After 1.5 year with XSI, it’s still very complex to export scene in a realtime 3D engine! Does it mean that for using XSI, I should employ an engineer for fixing every export problems? What could be very very usefull in this forum is to describe how can XSI export to other software (and not only with expensive 3d engines such as cryengine or unreal)…

By the way, one very nice exporter for XSI is Mascot Capsule you can export 3D content on a mobile phone using M3G standard. It works perfectly with XSI and the documentation is very clear.
http://www.mascotcapsule.com/en/download/comdot_plugin.php

Hey,

I think Virtools and Quest3D also supporting XSI file formats.

I agree with you (Ben8111) Softimage must really debug files formats and improve imports/exports, but as a whisper in the night. Softimage team don’t seam to like do small fixing issues and prefer work on big revolution.

The better 3D software on earth without good imports/exports today is nothing else then a marginal one ! See Modo who directly understand how imports/exports are so importants, how Houdini support a bunch of industries files formats,…

The XSI file format is open and I think Softimage team ask others to work/use with their file formats first...so XSI file formats isn’t a today industries standard ! FBX, OBJ, VRML, DWG, DXF, PLY, STL… are. Collada is to young and not well defined yet.

It’s shame to heard that’s Ogre3D community don’t continue to support XSI ! this is one of the biggest 3D engine in the world and free / open source !

I agree Softimage team can answer XSI is at first dedicated to film / animation and file formats are do in this way but with Foundation they will want to get most market parts and new users database...so open XSI at first !

Don’t speak me about Crosswalk it’s a nightmare to use it and there is so much DotXSIconverter.dll, path,.. Bing Bing error !

I want to heard Softimage team still at the top !

Sorry for my madness but I spend 3 hours today to try fixing Crosswalk export and dll fixing !

Exporting contents from Softimage XSI 4.2 to Virtools is possible ; new version are not supported :(. For Quest3D : Collada do not work, and .X is not reliable (UV flip, bones animations issues...).

I’m so has been on Virtools and Quest3D side :-) Thanks for precisions !