#21 DTS is borked, DAE is not working, I love the effortless art pipeline, just always tought it was meant otherwise ;)
We would love to have a way to get our multimesh character properly working inside the engine, so mail coming your way eb.

#22 multimesh works fine, and mesh hiding, with dts....

#23 Bryan,
I prepared a long long post but I deleted it to be replaced with this;

- I use dts and dae for their respective uses.
If you want to know these specific uses, You can sign a contract to pay me $150/hour to explain them to you. The information is worth much more! Trust me.
I wasn't going to charge you but your snide comments helped me to think of a good price.

If you don't want to pay me for that information, then please at least stop arguing with us about something of which you are clearly uninformed.

This is NOT about comfort, this is about creating ideal art.

Thank you.
------------------------------------
@Christian, I have the email. Thx

#24 All I've ever really used is Max9 + OpenCollada exporter (and eb's tool for speediness). Player, vehicle, weapons... some simple boxes too, so I've not had the explicit need for DTS in a while. While I fully understand the desire to go straight to DTS, it's never come up as a necessity in my own work flow. To that end, I once corrupted a max file and was able to lose much less work thanks to the most recent.DAE importing back into Max cleanly. I also find it much easier to work with. Create, save, and moving on.

#25 For me, it's all about the tool that gets the job done, period...I'll use any piece of software to generate art for the Torque engines I can get my hands on and grasp quickly enough[and the toolbox is full of them, believe me; it's heavy!]...I feel it's more about grasping what the formats are capable of and utilizing each when/where needed[nod to eb].

I need to move binary information between apps, and every one of these programs have a different 'take' on DAE and how it should be constructed, which is why I choose to build my shapes directly to DTS and move data with another format entirely, FBX, so there ;P. Wouldn't it be cool if the Torque engine read/wrote to FBX?? Hm....tasty, Precious, it issssss....

The Shape Editor allows for further fine tuning of shapes, so there's another tool for making things happen. I've done some pretty interesting things with that tool as well...


Keep your box full and your piehole shut! LOL.

Cheers!

#26 FBX has the same issues as Collada, even though the SDK is pretty robust. Also has collada import/export using the SDK. I have had mixed results with it, same issues as everybody else - their own take on the 'standard'.

When I put together obj2dts, same thing with obj files. No one treated this WELL DEFINED standard as a standard and just did it their own way.

I like the IDEAL of supporting one open format, and for people just starting with the engine Collada is the best choice. From my experience, most production pipelines end up with automated tools along the chain to modify the data anyways - atlas generation is a big one for me. I require strict control of the data and dts is the only format that I've used that doesnt have me tearing my hair out wondering WTF the exporter writer was thinking. DTS can only be one way. Collada, being XML based, has the benefits of being text based, semi human-readable, but also allows a lot of leeway on what/how the data is put into the file.

#27 There's nothing magical about vehicles and DTS, really. All you need are the correctly named nodes, and the correctly named animations.

As far as I know, the DAE pipeline supports both nodes *and* animations. I believe this is a classic case of someone being too attached to an old tutorial or the old way of doing things.

I haven't done vehicle work in a long time, but using the shape editor you can create, rename and re-parent nodes and animations to your heart's content.

Change is an interesting thing. People suddenly forget how awful the DTS pipeline was, and that different exporters had different problems as much as different Collada exporters! Back then it took ages to get our modelers to understand how to properly export an animated character that worked in our game. Today, I just give them an overall hierarchy guideline and let them to their own devices, handling all my game-specific stuff via TSShapeConstructor.

#28 DAE doesn't fully replace DTS yet;
Read mattF's post on page 1...and after you read that, remind of the last time that GG people didn't mis-gauge reality..I can't remember it.

1.0.1 had major DAE issues. 1.1 will have minor issues without a doubt and I think it's all because of what Jameson mentioned; people make their own takes on the format which means Chris is most likely doing his best to sort all of them.



- Russell and I were talking around the time of v1.0; about how PhysX models failed more than 30-40% of the time when using DAE variants. Yet, with DTS , the success rate is 100%.

SO...

..both are good for their own reasons and that is 1 small small small small small example from an arsenal of examples that will cost $150/hr for those who want to know.

thanks.

#29 True, Jameson....that is the beauty of DTS, only one way to construct it....FTW.


There are differing version of FBX, sure...but with the apps I'm using, really minor 'objects' to assemble/data to keep handle on. Mesh, UV, skeleton...get some crazy naming 'schemes'[adding internal Model::, stuf like that].

It's all in knowing what you need, how to achieve it.....'weapon' is irrelevant.

#30 I'm using 3DS Max 2010 and Autodesk's DAE export - and I have to say that it's not so good for exporting characters, unless you want them to look like crazy octopi or insane jellyfish. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong....

For characters I still use the DTS exporter that eb put together - never fails.

#31 By my understanding, COLLADA and DTS are used for completely different reasons. COLLADA is meant to be a format that can be easily transfered from application to application. Since it's XML, it's not meant to be used in end games because the loading time can get a little slow and other reasons. DTS is optimized for speedy loading and to match up with the internal data structures of Torque. I don't think DAE will ever replace DTS because that's not what it's for.
A lot of engines are taking the same approach as T3D (providing some sort of COLLADA conversion program) because it eliminates the need for a million different exporters. It's just a matter of getting the one conversion program to work correctly :)

EDIT:
btw, I completely understand deepscratch's frustrations. The source for the exporters should be included in the T3D distribution. I can't find the source for the updated map2dif either.

#32 @Richard R: Found Opencollada (with Max9) to work better than Autodesk collada.

When you find out how to assign sequences to hints in the shape editor you are on the way to get animated characters to work.

Who would think a "hint" could do that... funny/confusing naming there...

And the Documentation is getting better!

#33 I never actually understood what was so difficult/hard about using DTS (only ever personally used Blender though... sometimes Milkshape). Collada has it's perks but when working with several artists across differing apps the results were workable to meh to wtf? - where's the standard here!

Quote:
I can't find the source for the updated map2dif either.

map2dif hasn't been updated in ages... and is dead. DIF is dead.

#34

Quote:map2dif hasn't been updated in ages... and is dead. DIF is dead.

Fo reals? Is there another way to have BSP interiors? Forgive me, I'm new to Torque.

#35 This is tough to make general, because points are by context. So I'll sort the sections in simple manner;

DIF if still viable for TGE and TGEA (these should come with T3D purchase)
DIF/BSP variants are (next to)dead when concerning T3D use.


In T3D; You can import DIF files and export DAE files to re-import to become DTS files(converted by engine). Using DIF/BSP files in T3D is a bad choice as they cause issues with physics and they don't support the new material system iirc.
- One issue with DIF>DAE>DTS conversion is that faces are split; more verts rendered;possible performance issue. (I haven't fully tested this stuff since DIF is really outdated).

#36 Thanks eb. I guess I'm just used to the Quake-ish way of doing things.

#37 Also I believe with the DIFs in T3D, each face is a separate draw call or something to that effect, which probably outweighs the performance issues caused by additional verts in converting them to a proper "mesh" format

#38 yo deep im me man ill send u my collada player setup.

#39 thanks Kevin, that will be awesome, I'll catch you when you on.

#40 hey Kevin,you should post a resource on that.
I tried to export players several times using collada with no success.Animations looked similar,but not the same as the max ones (I believe some wrong transformations are applied somewhere..). Chris did a fantastic job with the collada stuff, but the whole thing is still buggy.
I am using collada for the static environment, the dts exporter for animation.