Collada Update Thread.

#1

I thought I’d start a thread that people can watch where I’ll update on the status of Collada support. So far its a large possibility that it will happen. The developer is communicative and interested.

Some things about me. I do not own Messiah. I do have a demo installed and running on my PC. I’m definetly at the beginner stage of using Messiah. (especially since I don’t own it yet;) ) Because of the #messiah3d IRC group I have grown to enjoy Messiah and its community and would like to help. I’m getting no benefits from all of this and would not receive any contribution or payment made to the developer. (unless someone wants to buy me a copy of messiah :wink: )

Enough about me. Currently the developer is investigating the feasibility and benefit of developing a Messiah Collada Importer/Exporter plugin and is looking into the SDK. I’m sure the community would be happy to support his efforts. Its likely that he will charge for the plugin. With that in mind, what do you think would be a reasonable price for the plugin?

I’m thinking in the $50-100 range.

The developer may also release the plugin for free, then a community donation project would be fair to thank the developer for their efforts.

#2

Update

From developer:
“That sounds much better to me, because I don’t want to sell it to the
Messiah users/community. Donation would be much better, so we could help
each other out here.”

The plugin will be donationware. :slight_smile:

#3

AFAIK it is not possible with the current SDK to write a geometry importer. You can’t create points, edges or polys in messiah.

An exporter should be possible, but be prepared to run into some limitations also.

Maybe it would be possible to have an external app that converts collada files to obj/lwo and a fxs?

I fear in the end Dan Milling from pmG is the one to do it properly.
He handles the IO stuff I think.
Maybe you can contact him directly?

Good Luck!

#4

I’d donate in the ~20 Euro range. More if I find it useful for how I work. I’m quite happy with mdd reading/writing but I’d love to see more happen in the messiah community, particularly in the way of games.
So… greetings to the developers.

#5

I’m very excited to see someone starts developing the Collada plug-in.

That’s a good idea. I’ll make a donation too. I mean, that’s the least I can do.

#6

AFAIK it is not possible with the current SDK to write a geometry importer. You can’t create points, edges or polys in messiah.

An exporter should be possible, but be prepared to run into some limitations also.

Maybe it would be possible to have an external app that converts collada files to obj/lwo and a fxs?

I fear in the end Dan Milling from pmG is the one to do it properly.
He handles the IO stuff I think.
Maybe you can contact him directly?

Good Luck!

Good idea. Thomas what is his direct email do you know? You can PM me if you’d like. As I’m not sure Dan wants his email all over the web. I might even be something they are working on. Thomas stated Dan was working on some things but he wasn’t familiar with what at the moment.

#7

Yep, im also willing to donate a considerable amount. How much depends on the quality of the plugin. One thing that i want is the ability to connect my messiah control rig to my maya animation rig and vise versa. I should be able to save out animation curves and then load them into for all the bones or control objects required.

Surfacing, lighting, texturing and deformations should also be transferable.It is critical to be able to visualize the scene in which im animating my character, i imagine it would be a matter of embedding meshes in collada and have messiah be able to open them the same way it loads lwo files.

#8

Wow Nichod!, this is a great news!
I´m donate too for this pluguin,

Thanks!

#9

I think that people would donate if they have a use for it. I would donate as well if it is useful to me.

#10

Just a brief note. I’ve contacted Dan Milling and moving forward from there. More info coming as soon as I know.

#11

Coolada :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

I’ve communicated with the developer again today. I just found out he bought ZBRUSH and is thinking of using Messiah in conjunction with it. hehe. I think he’ll find that they are perfect together.

Other than the documentation does anyone know a source of info in regards to coding for messiah?

#13

Please if you could answer the following questions:

Could you tell me what you are looking for with Collada?
Especially import or export? And what should be the features that will make
it a good plug-in for Messiah?

#14

get animation curves and rigged bones out of messiah and into collada. IE entire rig with effectors and handles should be seamlessly exported with all animation. so when you open it in your favorite program you can edit the curves instead of having just a baked mesh sequence.

#15

Quoted for agreement.

#16

Well this long forgotten project isn’t completely gone. I’m still in contact with Pieter about developing the plugin. But he was busy on other projects. And I decided not to spearhead the project with my own money.(was going to buy Messiah for Pieter and possibly pay for some development) Along with that I never received an email back from pmG on this. But after purchasing Messiah, I emailed Paula (who handles sales I guess and was quick to answer emails) and she(?) forwarded the email. So hopefully this won’t end up as vaporware.

#17

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