[Colladamaya-updates] Weekly Development Build 0.70

[Guillaume L. <gui...@gm...>]

Hello everyone!

Fall is coming, so is Collada 1.4! We're starting to make changes to
ColladaMaya's non-physics part that are not yet ratified and may be a
part of Collada 1.4.

The first of these changes are related to the tangents and
binormals(T/Bs). Specifically, the geometric T/Bs can now be exported
under the TANGENT and BINORMAL semantics, they are tied directly to
the normals in the tessellation. The texture T/Bs can now be exported
as well, under the TEXTANGENT and TEXBINORMAL semantics. They are
indexed together for each texture coordinate set and you'll notice
that a binary insertion algorithm is used to compress them. The
texture coordinate sets are defined using a new node: the
<texcoord_set> node, which is used only to identify which T/Bs go with
which texture coordinates. The export of geometric and texture T/Bs is
activated through their respective export options.

The second of these changes is one that I've personally been waiting a
long time to do: placing the light parameters under a <technique>
node. This allows ColladaMaya to export, under the Maya-specific
profile, the "intensity" and "penumbra" parameters. The importer is
backward compatible with the light parameter organization of Collada
1.3.

Finally, the weights for the weighted animation curves have been moved
from the Maya-specific profile to be inputs directly in the animation
curve's <sampler> node.

You can get this new version here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/colladamaya/ColladaPluginForMaya-0.70.zi=
p?download

Have a good weekend!

Guillaume Laforte
Feeling Software Inc.
http://www.feelingsoftware.com

Recent Changes
---------------------------
02/09/05 (Release 0.70)
=09(gla...@fe...)
=09Tangents/Binormals Compression: Refactored my T/Bs compression code
to be a binary inserting sort algorithm, which is O(2*n*ln(n))

01/09/05
=09(gla...@fe...)
=09Small Fix: Changed Transparency export so that the factor is always
zero. We use the transparent color channel instead to have
transparency.
=09Small Fix: From Kevin Thacker for a multiple UV sets issue. It so
happens that occasionnally, UV sets are not ordered properly and plugs
are dirty. Match uvSets by name rather than assuming the plug indices
match.
=09Small Fix: Moved the IN_TANGENT_WEIGHT and OUT_TANGENT_WEIGHT inputs
out of the Maya-specific techniques and into the sampler directly, as
it is accepted to add new input semantics outside the COMMON profile
directly with the other inputs. Kept the import code for backward
compatibility.
=09Collada 1.4 Lights: Moved the light parameters to be under a
<technique> node. All the currently exported parameters are exported
under the COMMON profile. Added the export of two important light
parameters, under the Maya-specific profile: intensity and penumbra
angle. Added the export of their animation and created a test case to
test this out. Backward compatibility with Collada 1.3 is kept by
batching all the parameters, whether they are under a <technique> node
or not, before parsing them during the import. Added import of the two
Maya-specific light parameters and their animation.
=09Tangents/Binormals Compression: Implemented the brute force insert
sort algorithm for tangents/binormal compression. Merge the texture
T/Bs tessellation indices together for each texture coordinate set.
Export the compressed T/Bs and keep the compressed T/Bs indices until
the polygons are exported, as they are needed, as an extra level of
indexing, for the tessellation.

29/08/05
=09(gla...@fe...)
=09SourceForge #1275653: Tangents/Binormals (T/Bs) Support: Implemented
the Collada 1.4 poll results for the new organization of T/Bs as
follows. Added new export option for the texture T/Bs. Refactored the
current T/B export code to actually calculate the geometric T/Bs using
the normal vector. If the texture T/Bs are to be exported, then for
each UV set, add the new <texcoord_set> node with the correct sources
as input. Added the new TEXTANGENT and TEXBINORMAL semantics. The
texture T/Bs are more complex than I originally thought, as they are
always per-face, per-vertex, so I need to keep track of the total
offset for each face.