Collada file with integrated textures

hello,

i have a pack of collada file (1.4/1.5 version) with integrated textures in the dae file. is it true that v4 only supports dae with external texture. if so, how can i transform these files?

Could you provide one of these files?

hi,

I have the same problem with a view collada file, I have no experience with the conversion of 3d files.

regards

NM_20k.dae_.zip (1.2 MB)

@mindthegap
meanwhile I give I look at the file, you should be aware that probably

you’ve just summoned @evvvvil on you!!!


I can’t find any material or image in the file: both <library_images/> and <library_materials/> tags are self closing.
What is then exactly the issue?

I’ve had a look at the file with blender. Nice flint.

  • It’s a scene so ColladaFile (EX9.Geometry) won’t load it, but you can do it with Scene (Assimp).

  • Importing into blender and re-exporting (with no changes on default preset export setting), will make flint available. If you need this, I’ll upload it.

You certainly have summoned the beast! And I will come down on you like a tonne of bricks, bruvs! ;)

So yeah, nice work @h99! You are right and I will add this:

-Firstly you CAN export a whole bunch of models into one COLLADA file, HOWEVER and forgive my lack of Blender knowledge, but it might involve a different process to “export scene”. Essentially You must have all your models as polygonal, flattened models, with nothing specific to BLENDER (if you have for ex certain EFFECTS on your models which modify the geometry then you MUST “flatten”/“bake” those effects to turn your model into a flat polygonal model, a simple bunch of vertices really. I insist though you CAN import a collada file containing many models into vvvv, I imported a collada with 10 models before, you will just get a spread of all your models rather than just one model out of the ColladaFile Node.

-Secondly, regarding your textures, the problem is that, I guess, your textures were created inside BLENDER, so once again, you CANNOT export things that are specific to blender, so what you need to do is BAKE YOUR TEXTURES. This will turn any BLENDER specific texture, which have specific blender shading, into a simple PICTURE TEXTURE with according uvmap. This is very important.

-Thirdly - and without trying to sound like a hipster looking for a limited edition broken record bootlegged by MADLIB’s grandmum - you should take a look at my tutorial about how to prepare and export your models in CINEMA 4D for COLLADA export. Granted, it is specific to CINEMA 4D rather than BLENDER BUT you would still learn a lot as a lot of COLLADA export’s mysteries are demystified in this tutorial and all the subject above are explained. Please find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7deQU314LE

-Fourthly, and most importantly, here is a picture of my only friend: a midget with a mullet, good luck bruvs.

P.S. There is starting to be a lot of hairy men on this forum, which is making me a lot more comfortable.

2017 EDIT THIS IS HOW TO DO SKINNING:

2 Likes

@evvvvil
Just to say, hairy men used flints a lot of time ago…

@mindthegap
This is getting probably OT, but let’s see what comes out…

Anyway, this made me meet Meshlab, which seems very nice, which is Italian software…
Your issue is: the colours you see into meshlab are “good” only for meshlab. They couldn’t be directly exported in a collada file.
Trying to understand something about this, I found really poor documentation; anyway I’ve been able to create texcoords and to export a texture, but now we have a 10MB .dae.

Tell me if your interested in having new file.

TEXTURES: I think it’s all about finding how to BAKE YOUR TEXTURE in BLENDER, that I don’t know, but it should be simple. Same thing goes for meshlab, 3ds max, cinema 4d, Maya or whatever, textures that you create in your 3d package are SPECIFIC to that package and to that package only, that’s why you need to BAKE TEXTURES as once you bake your textures, they become a simple picture with UVmap which can be exported to collada. Think about it guys: when you use the colladaFile node + Mesh Node you get an output pin for the texture which is a STRING, this STRING is the path to the texture image, and you put that string in a filetexture node to apply your texture to your model. This proves my point that for COLLADA export TEXTURES MUST BE IMAGES. Therefore find how to transform your in-built 3ds max, meshlab or whatever texture to a flat image texture, it’s called “texture baking” if I am right… But then with the copious amount of weed that I am smoking these days, this could totally be a conspiracy theory aimed at undermining proud men wearing mullets…

@evvvvil

If you look inside xml you’ll find this

<authoring_tool>VCGLib | MeshLab</authoring_tool>

and this is produced by meshlab software. Now, for what I can tell, meshlab has its own way to map colors on a mesh. As I told it’s totally possible to export the file, though through meshlab it’s a bit tedious.
Plus, having a look at collada specifications a collada file can contain a hex representation of a bitmap, and I also found some documentation to rebuild the bitmap, which, as a side note, it’s why this thread was opened.

And, yes, have a break, go out breathing fresh air and walking a lot: it may help with conspiracy theories, I guess :)

The link to Collada 1.5 Specification may increase perceptions of conspiracy theories.

I was joking bro, lol, I hate conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, they show a lack of confidence and seriously weak parenting.
I am sorry but I don’t really understand what you mean in your last comment though bro… All I am trying to say is that it doesn’t matter what method you use to create your textures (hell you could even paint the texture in photoshop if you wanted) BUT for a collada texture to export correctly from a 3d package, it must be reduced to a simple image. I haven’t used meshlab although I’m aware of it, but if you’re saying it works directly from meshlab it means that meshlab AUTOMATICALLY BAKES TEXTURES before export. In Cinema 4d you can create in-built textures, through the LAYER SHADER for example, or by using BODYPAINT 3D(which is lkike painting on model and equivalent to photoshop 3d painting). Again it doesn’t matter what you use, in the end you MUST bake your texture to dumb-down the texture to a simple png or jpg image, then you duplicate your texture but this time just put a simple image as the texture, forget about layer shader or whatever, and now when you export to collada, it works. Sorry mate I am not sure I understand your point/problem but if you explain again maybe I can help. Cheers

Final point: EVERY 3D PACKAGE SHOULD HAVE A WAY FOR YOU TO BAKE YOUR TEXTURES! FIND OUT HOW TO BAKE YOUR TEXTURES IN YOUR 3d PACKAGE and then swap your textures for the new baked texture and it will export to collada fine. It works the same in other toolkits like UNITY (although UNITY also accepts .FBX 3d format which is like COLLADA but allows also for PLA animation)

:D

I was just saying that collada file can embed a hexadecimal representation of a png image, for example.
In vvvv is missing a node converting from hex to png, or other image formats. I think it’s possible, once one haz all the necessary info (header, res, etc.). So I’m trying to pull devvvvs and coders interest on this topic. Maybe for someone experienced in C# coding, it’s an easy task - I got lost immediately, for example.

ok, nice conversation, I think I couldn’t follow…

i am very interested to get the final file and of course I’m interested in how the file was converted.

thanxs

You should look for docs on the internet, the few I found are in english.
You can download the file here.

ok, thanks, you have converted the file with meshlab?

regards

@EVERYONE: I forgot to mention try to stick to COLLADA 1.4 rather than 1.5! I found out that when exporting from Cinema 4d to COLLADA, it DOESN’T WORK IN VVVV if you export to COLLADA 1.5!!! I tried everything, it doesn’t work! I don’t know if this is specific to Cinema 4d or specific to vvvv. In fact if any of you has ever managed to import a collada 1.5 in vvvv then I would be curious to know what 3d package you used to create it (like i said: doesn’t work in cinema 4d)

@h99: Wow man I was not aware of this! To be fair COLLADA is actually a simple mark-up language, it’s basically XML. So that means you can open a COLLADA file in a text editor and modifying it by changing the code. Thaty is what you are talking about I guess. VERY INTERESTING, it seems possible indeed to export the image in a raw text format and then are you thinking of simply copy and pasting the raw data into the collada’s XML? Just so you know I am web designer / web developer working in Advertising so I am fluent with XML and some other programming languages so maybe I can help nailing this. So is this what you were talking about? Hardcoding raw image data into xml file bascially? Or thinking of some direct export from 3d package into embed raw image content(that would be sick)… Importan tpoint to note though: hardcoding an image in raw textual data in the collada file will obviously make the collada file itself much bigger, but then it opens door to more complex textures and maybe even animated stuff. Anyway let me know bro… Cheers

@mindthegap, evvvvil
go to my @h99, click on send mail (between vcard and contributions) and write me: we’re going OT, here.

Well I don’t know bro it could be good to keep posting on forum for people to see answers in the future, granted this is starting to be a little irrelevant to the actual beginning question but there is still a lot of good information in this thread so maybe we should keep this thread going on here for all to see… I don’t know brothers it’s up to yous lot. If you want let’s talk on email for now but let’s not forget to update this thread when we get somewhere. Yo add me on facebook @h99 and @mindthegap…

MANGOSH EVVIL

Yo @mindthegap are you from London bro? With a name like “mindthegap” lol I thought you might be. I am in London, French originally, but I’ve lived here over 15 years so turned into a dirty sausage-roll munching Londoner. ;)

Anyway peace guys let’s talk on email or hear but le’ts not forget to update the thread when we get somewhere OR create a new thread, it might help people in the future…

WICKED!

@evvvvil
To me, a zuckerberg is just a way to get caries, to grow fat, or something like that.

I don’t know how textures are embedded into collada, nor I’m able to do it, nor the rest: that’s why I thought about email.

@mindthegap yes with meshlab. This thread it’s not on how to export collada from there, so, if you like, mail me.

hello,

i had finally the time to check the collada thing. with the entertaining tut from evvvvil I could make the external textures in cinema 4d.

actually I found some nice rigged figures that I can not get to run in v4. without the rigg everything looks perfect. @evvvvil: you talked about this topic in the end of your tut… perhaps you can explain these steps.