Horde3D

Hi All!

Now that I've wrapped Horde3D to work with Euphoria, I want to make a simple game. I'm a bit stumped by Collada though. How do I use ColladaConv. Actually, what does ColladaConv do?

I don't have a high end modelling app so plugins for something like XSI are out of the question. When saving 3D models for use across apps, I usually export as obj.

So, I guess my question is, how do I get the models I create into Horde?

Mark

you could use blender, a free high-end package. it has a built in collada exporter. then you use the exported collada files with the colladaconv tool to get formats that horde can read

As Spooky pointed out, Blender is probably the best choice if you want to do a small project. If you are about to create a serious game it is better to use 3d studio max (unfortunately really expensive if you can't get a student license) or another commercial package, but then you also need some good artists

Horde has perfect compatibility with 3ds max and probably also maya (they use the same Collada exporter). From these programs you can export complex models with several skin modifiers and morph targets. For static models Blender is also working fine. The problem is that you can't use animated meshes since the Blender exporter is not yet finished and unfortunately their progress is currently pretty slow.

you could actually do all your work in blender and then use a polytrans like application to get it from a format that supports all your needs into a full-featured collada file. i actually didnt know that the blender exporter was not completed. thanks for pointing that out

Thanks Spooky and Nic for the suggestions.

I use trueSpace for modelling. A more expensive app is out of the question I'm afraid. This might finally kick me into using Blender although the lack of animation export is a problem. Actually, I've already found Blender import / export from some formats to be pretty flakey.

Spooky's suggestion of a converter is what I would really like. Are there any 3D file format converters around which support Collada export? I googled last night (and am about to again now) but didn't come up with much.

Mark

i remember about polytrans and deep creator, but i am not sure about their collada support. you could buy milkshape3d and use it as a polytrans solution.

but there is no need for this anymore.from the collada forums:

Great news. Thanks Spooky. I'll check it out tomorrow.

I found an interesting piece of software while I was searching, called MeshLab....

http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

It can do a lot of operations on 3D meshes. Also imports and exports Collada, obj, 3ds...

I managed to get a model into Horde using it, so it worls for static meshes.

Looking forward to trying out the anim support in blender.

Mark

We tried the Blender animation export some time ago but it was still quite buggy. Unfortunately there hasn't been a new release this year, but I have seen that the subversion on sourceforge was recently updated by another contributer. Might be you could try to get the code directly from the repository.

I have been using the .FBX exporter for another project and it works reasonably well. You can use the free FBX to Collada converter, downloadable from the Autodesk homepage to bring your models into Horde3D.

The newest blender collada exporter v1.4

http://colladablender.illusoft.com/cms/

still seems to have some bugs. I exported a basic mesh with a fairly simple material and it came into the horde engine with holes and the material didn't transfer properly.

The proplem seems to be that it is changing the normals. I am deep into coding right now. But I will check it out more later. It might be an issue of settings.

Fbx to Collada might be the way for now but I hate adding the extra step for an art production pipeline.

If you use FBX you can use wings 3d as a modeler:

http://www.wings3d.com/

Also FX Composer 2 has bundled an app called Mental Mill Artist Edition that does GLSL shaders visually.

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/fx_c ... _home.html

They would still have to be converted to XML. FX Composer 2 can also use these files. It also can now save and import Collada files. It is my hope that Horde will also support Collada FX. When that happens you will be able to use FX Composer to set up all your materials/shaders on your models.

_________________
I know just enough C++ to be a danger to myself and others.

http://www.kinderproductions.com/forum2/

We have used the Blender Collada exporter some time ago and it worked fine for static meshes. It exports the diffuse texture of the material, but no other material properties. Also make sure that you enable triangulation and 'bake matrices' while exporting from Blender.

I have looked a bit more deeply into FX Composer 2. Unfortunately they don't support GLSL at the moment but they plan to add this in the future. So currently there is no chance of using it for Horde. Mental Mill can be used since Horde XML shader files can directly reference plain text shader file. The problem is that for lighting special shader variables are required that Mental Mill doesn't have by default but since you can write your own shader modules for Mental Mill this should be solvable.

They don't support GLSL in FX COMPOSER 2 but they do support Material export VIA Collada FX. That seems to be the best path for incorporating tools like this ( in my opinion )

"COLLADA FX enables shaders to be authored and packaged using OpenGL Shading Language so that leading 3D authoring tools can work effectively together to create OpenGL / OpenGL ES applications and assets."

From:

http://www.khronos.org/collada/

And FX Composer 2 claims to support Collada FX.

_________________
I know just enough C++ to be a danger to myself and others.

http://www.kinderproductions.com/forum2/

Yes FX Composer supports ColladaFX, but only the CG profile and the common profile which doesn't use any shaders at all. What we would need is Collada FX with a GLSL profile.

Here is a bit more information:
http://developer.nvidia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15&hl=GLSL

That's a shame it would have been a great production tool.

Well good things come to those who are willing to wait...

_________________
I know just enough C++ to be a danger to myself and others.

http://www.kinderproductions.com/forum2/

Yeah, I use FX Composer 2 at work for writing HLSL shaders (for a Gamebryo project; not horde) - it's proved quite useful to me.
When I write GLSL shaders though, I just use a text editor (UltraEdit)