It’s deadline time again. All I can manage, again, is a follow-up to April’s post.
Here is a link from some time ago in the forums that leads to a new graphical application that visualizes COLLADA’s XML resources. It works much as a web browser displays a web page.
http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/holy/ColladaDOM_3_Reference_Viewer.zip
I am keeping it up-to-date with new capabilities as they come online. There are sample files and keyboard and mouse usage instructions to be had in the following link.
http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/bbs2/index.php?topic=234.msg2253#msg2253
In May I could hardly recall where I spent my time, except that in the previous week I’ve worked extensively on the “FX” part of the application in preparation for taking it beyond the confines of Nvidia’s Cg API that was part of an initiative for the PlayStation 3 but is now gathering cobwebs; Only in the last weeks while I was working on it Nvidia took down its online documentation.
In the week prior I decided to apply myself to nooks and crannies: working on nonlinear curve design and its application to 3-D animation.
Finally I was able to recall the earlier part of the month. In that time I believe I hit upon a practical way to incorporate the newer of COLLADA’s two XML schemas (1.5.0) into the software; Which was a first.
This application is a refinished version of what is very possibly the earliest existing COLLADA software package. By this point I’m heavily invested in COLLADA. I may be the only person who is so. In fact I have my doubts about its future, including my own. It is because of what I’ve learned working on it. That I’ve doubt I can do anything to spur its adoption, no matter what I may achieve. I chose to do this quite simply because I felt like it. That’s how I still feel, and I’m not one to cut my losses and walk away. What this means is that COLLADA may be no better to Sword of Moonlight than if it had its own proprietary format. Which is not good. Because it will mean that COLLADA will only be as good as the software that I develop for it.
I guess if that’s its fate it will be, if nothing else, a stunning rebuke of this abysmal field’s inability to escape the gravitational well its self-satisfaction has made for itself.
Forum Discussion
