Bones Animations from Maya 6 complete

[ddchili]

I am comming from a world of shockwave developed indie games and I would like to move to Java. So with that in mind, I'm looking for a scene graph loader that will allow me to call my model and animations from Maya 6 exported content. I've read this board and have been down many paths that lead to incompatabilities. Do I need to write my own loader for this behavior? I'm looking to accomplish the folloiwng with a humanoid model that has IK chains built in as animation nodes. For example:

Loader load = new Loader();
Model model = load.loadModel("/myModel.someformat");
model.setAnimation("walkCycle");
BonesPlayer bp = new BonesPlayer(model);
bp.play();

Or do I need to animate my nodes manually via code using the OBJLoader?  I've tried MD3 plugins but I can't load into Maya 6. I started down the path of COLLADA but I'm not sure if this is the path I should be following. Can anyone offer suggestions for where I should start here? I have not tried the maya to 3ds exporter yest but it sounds like I can call animations from it.

Thanks,
David

[Amos Wenger]

Go COLLADA : http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladamaya/ 

[ddchili]

Thanks for the response! I started using ColladaLoader last night with Java 1.6 but had problems with my Intelli-J debugger so I revert back to jdk 1.5 and use Java WSDP for JAXB support.

 ...and David Croft's site is back up yayy! I'll be trying this out over the weekend.

Thanks,
David

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[croft]

Thanks for the response! I started using ColladaLoader last night with Java 1.6 but had problems with my Intelli-J debugger so I revert back to jdk 1.5 and use Java WSDP for JAXB support.

 ...and David Croft's site is back up yayy! I'll be trying this out over the weekend.

I am going to migrate the COLLADA Loader to JAXB 2.0 in a month or so.

[ddchili]

I am going to migrate the COLLADA Loader to JAXB 2.0 in a month or so.

<br>

Thanks for the heads up. I did run into an issue when trying to use the XithColladaLoader. Upon execution, a runtime exception, no class found for org.whoola.core.behaviors.BehaviorImpl. I did not find this class when I downloaded src. I was using this inorder to create a Scene object. I was able to load using ColladaLoader and return the nodes back without a problem. Should I be using XithColladaLoader to use in Xith? Or is there a way to use a COLLADA type in Xith?

Thanks,
David

[croft]

Thanks for the heads up. I did run into an issue when trying to use the XithColladaLoader. Upon execution, a runtime exception, no class found for org.whoola.core.behaviors.BehaviorImpl. I did not find this class when I downloaded src. I was using this inorder to create a Scene object. I was able to load using ColladaLoader and return the nodes back without a problem. Should I be using XithColladaLoader to use in Xith? Or is there a way to use a COLLADA type in Xith?

Did you mean org.xith3d.behaviors.impl.BehaviorImpl?  If so, look for it in xith-tk.

[ddchili]

Did you mean org.xith3d.behaviors.impl.BehaviorImpl?  If so, look for it in xith-tk.

Yeah, that's most likely the case. I thought I had xith-tk in my cp but I'll make sure once I'm in front of the code again. Do you have an example of manipulating a .dae model that was loaded using XithColladaLoader and then added to a Xith Scene? Is the Scene behavior the right way to manipulate a XithColladaLoader loaded .dae file in Xith?

Thanks so much!
David

[ddchili]

when I try:

xithLoaderObj.setBasePath("windoze file system path to .dae file");
xithScene =  xithLoaderObj.load(readerObj);

I receive a parsing exception:

Exception in thread "main" com.xith3d.loaders.ParsingErrorException
   at com.whoola.core.media.xith.XithColladaLoader.load(Unknown Source)
   at org.xith3d.loaders.ext.ExtensionLoader.load(ExtensionLoader.java:140)
   at com.xit.xit3d.testing.XitSceneTest.loadMayaScene(XitSceneTest.java:101)
   at com.xit.xit3d.testing.XitSceneTest.main(XitSceneTest.java:124)
Caused by: com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException
   at com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException.check(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException.checkArgs(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.media.xith.XithColladaImporter.importColladaType(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.media.xith.XithColladaLoader.createScene(Unknown Source)
   ... 4 more

But the same .dae file loads without error if I use ColladaLoader.   

[croft]

Yeah, that's most likely the case. I thought I had xith-tk in my cp but I'll make sure once I'm in front of the code again. Do you have an example of manipulating a .dae model that was loaded using XithColladaLoader and then added to a Xith Scene? Is the Scene behavior the right way to manipulate a XithColladaLoader loaded .dae file in Xith?

Once loaded, I manipulate the scenegraph using the Xith classes.  I am using Xith Behavior objects for animation.  Is this what you meant?

[croft]

Caused by: com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException
   at com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException.check(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.lang.NullArgumentException.checkArgs(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.media.xith.XithColladaImporter.importColladaType(Unknown Source)
   at com.whoola.core.media.xith.XithColladaLoader.createScene(Unknown Source)
   ... 4 more

I was just working on XithColladaImporter yesterday.  I added a bit more info to the NullArgumentException printout to assist with debugging.  Please do a CVS update on Whoola core and let me know how it goes.

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[ddchili]

Once loaded, I manipulate the scenegraph using the Xith classes.  I am using Xith Behavior objects for animation.  Is this what you meant?

yep. That's the path I'm going on, thanks!

I was just working on XithColladaImporter yesterday.  I added a bit more info to the NullArgumentException printout to assist with debugging.  Please do a CVS update on Whoola core and let me know how it goes.

sounds good, I'll update tonight and report status afterwards.

Thanks David for all your help. I'm very excited to get my development pipeline working and start on characters from maya to be used in Xith.

David

[ddchili]

I grabbed the latest form cvs for module core this evening. do I need J2EE dependencies intsalled? I'm trying to run the ant build script "collada.xml" from core/bld/ but as you may have suspected, I have compile time errors. Do you have a list of dependencies I need?  Are all the dependencies listed in the build xml file?

Thanks.

[croft]

I grabbed the latest form cvs for module core this evening. do I need J2EE dependencies intsalled? I'm trying to run the ant build script "collada.xml" from core/bld/ but as you may have suspected, I have compile time errors. Do you have a list of dependencies I need?  Are all the dependencies listed in the build xml file?

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