Think you know COLLADA?
Prove it! Enter the COLLADA
"Create the Best Conditioner" Contest
And showcase your skills!
For more information visit: www.colladacon
test.com
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San Diego SIGGRAPH 2007
Aug 7-9, 2007
Held in the San Diego Convention
Center, SIGGRAPH 2007 will attract
25,000 attendees. Join Khronos
Members for three days of BOF
sessions & Booth demos.
For more information,
click here.
COLLADA Tool Chain BOF
Effective Content Creation Pipeline
Wednesday, August 8th
2:00pm - 3:45pm
COLLADA SIGGRAPH Party
Games, Giveaways & Demos
Wednesday, August 8th
3:45pm - 4:45pm
Click
here to Register for the BOFs
COLLADA RESOURCES
Buy the COLLADA Book here
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COLLADA for the people!
Kathleen Maher, Analyst
Technologies are like children. They get born
and then
they wander off to become something their
parents
never expected. Take COLLADA for instance.
COLLADA was created as an exchange medium for
game developers, but as it finds its way out
in the
world, it is becoming used as an exchange
tool for a
variety of applications and the effect is
more than
simply a lot of programs adapting COLLADA as an
exchange format. That's great, it increases the
usefulness of COLLADA as a tool for
professionals.
But there's a larger effect as COLLADA makes 3D
more accessible to more people for their own
uses.
We're seeing COLLADA being used for CAD models
as well as content being developed for games and
movies. It's also becoming a mode of
communication
for people who want to show off the 3D creations
made with easy tools like Google's SketchUp.
Teapotters.com is just such a site. It offers
models in
various formats including COLLADA. Users can
upload models and download models in various
formats and the site also provides a 3D
viewer to let
users add 3D models to their site. 3D
Warehouse, as
the name implies offers thousands of free
models for
use in SketchUp projects.
In addition, MADLIX has announced an exporter
tool
that
enables 3D artists to export their 3D artwork
from
Autodesk Maya to the MADLIX gallery. MADLIX
offers
users a stand alone viewer. MADLIX is a
project of
Agency9. The company makes software tools for
real-
time 3D applications and games and has
created its
own 3D engine called AgentFX. CTO Tomas Karlsson
says that MADLIX was developed to connect 3D
artists
with end-users and "enable 3D content for
everybody."
The company has several projects in the works
including adding functionalities for
personification
a.k.a."pimping" models, and they're
adding support for other 3D modelers in
addition to
Maya. The company's long range vision includes
adding a payment capability so artists can
sell their
3D content through the site.
www.teapotters.com
sketchup.google.com/3Dwarehouse
www.madlix.com
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"Create the Best Conditioner" Contest
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Showcase your COLLADA talents!
The Khronos Group invites you to demonstrate
your knowledge of COLLADA by participating in
the first COLLADA "Create the best
conditioner" contest. Participants are asked
to write one or more conditioners for the
COLLADA Refinery. By participating you'll not
only make your mark among your peers but
you'll be helping the development community
build a set of useful tools to share and
improve the lot of 3D content developers
throughout the world. You will be a hero.
But, if the respect and appreciation of your
peers is not enough, there will be prizes
too.
Submissions will be shown at the COLLADA
party at Siggraph and winning conditioners
will be made available in Open Source using
the MIT license.
Additional details can be found on the
COLLADA
Contest website.
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Google 3D content for Photoshop users
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For two releases, Adobe has increased the 3D
features in Photoshop. At the same time Adobe
has
added 3D intelligence into PDF with Adobe 3D.
Most
recently, Adobe has announced a plug-in for
Google
3D Warehouse and Photoshop CS3 Extended. The
plug-in lets users find and download 3D
content
from the 3D Warehouse from within Photoshop.
Adobe has added support for COLLADA so objects
downloaded from the Google 3D Warehouse can be
edited and manipulated in Photoshop CX3
Extended.
Downloaded models are converted to KMZ (Google
Earth's native format). Photoshop also
supports 3D
formats 3DS, OBJ, and U3D.
The Adobe web site warns that models over 5
MB will
load very slowly. Adobe is not building a CAD
system... yet. The models are designed to be
used
within a design and can be manipulated to a
limited
extent. Models can be rotated; there are
lighting
modes, render modes, and a cross section tool.
It's also possible to edit the textures of 3D
models
using Photoshop's image editing and painting
capabilities. The plug-in is free and can be
downloaded at the Adobe Labs web site.
Learn More About
Photoshop
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Autodesk extends support for COLLADA in AutoCAD
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The latest updates on Autodesk Labs for
AutoAD 2007
and 2008 features improvements to the export to
Google Earth KML features. AutoCAD support
dramatically increases the power of Google
Earth.
Sure, SketchUp is a great tool for creating
models on
the fly but there is so much data already in
AutoCAD.
The process of building virtual worlds that
reflect our
real one is picking up speed.
Among the improvements is the ability to support
materials attached to AutoCAD entities as
they're
exported to Google Earth 4 through COLLADA. In
addition there is new support for terrain
data and also
support for attaching time to AutoCAD
entities which
can be used with Google Earth's time slider
features.
So for example, the slider could be used to show
project changes over time in Google Earth.
More Information on
Autodesk
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Lightsprint adds COLLADA support
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Toolmaker Lightsprint has added support for
COLLADA. The company gives users the ability
to add
global illumination to their rendering thanks
to their
realtime radiosity technology. The company has
included support for COLLADA in its SDK since
March,
2007. COLLADA is supported as an input file and
FCDocument of FCollada is supported as an
internal
scene representation in memory.
New demos with COLLADA content are in the works
but for an idea of Lightsprint's global
illumination
capabilities check out their downloadable
demo at www.3d-test.com.
More
Information on
Lightsprint
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Anark uses COLLADA to address new markets
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Gamasutra recently interviewed Anark's Frank
Black,
Director of business development.
Black
said that his company is very excited about
ongoing
development with COLLADA. As developers of
Gameface, a tool used to create game front
ends, Anark
represents the type of company COLLADA was
developed to help. The company takes
advantage of
COLLADA in order to keep its tools within the
development pipeline so that it's not
disruptive to do
some work in Gameface and other work in other
products.
Anark has its roots in the game development
world
but the company's flagship product, Anark
Studio is an
interactive 3D development tool that is being
used in
the aerospace and automotive industries.
Anark has
found that COLLADA is a useful medium for the
exchange of CAD information. Studio takes
advantage
of COLLADA to bring in CAD models. This is a
space
that will be interesting to watch as large
enterprises try
to take advantage of the libraries of models.
M
ore Information on Anark
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Worldweaver introduces DX Studio with COLLADA support
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DX Studio is a 3D PC game development tool. The
new 2.0 version includes a 3D model editor
allowing
users to create their own interactive
applications. This
latest version of the product will also
include support
for COLLADA. DX Studio is available in Freeware,
Standard, and Pro editions.
In addition to COLLADA support Worldweaver has
also added a new lighting engine,
post-processing
effects, per pixel bump/opacity/specular map
support,
and COLLADA open model format. And, the new
version allows users to connect into the DX
Studio
online library to share models, materials,
and script
with others, an addition that Worldweaver
believes will
encourage "Web 2.0" collaboration.
"DX Studio has always been good for the final
development stage of interactive 3D
applications. Now
it's the only package in the world to support
the
complete application development process in a
single
integrated editor," said CEO and founder Chris
Sterling.
More detailed information on these and other new
features and their use is available at the DX
Studio
website. The official site also offers a full
download of
the new version.
More
Information on Worldweaver
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Learn About COLLADA for Content Authoring
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GeoWeb 2007
Summer is lovely in Canada... and if you're in GIS, it's
a good time to go to Vancouver,British
Columbia where GeoWeb 2007 will be
held in July.
The theme this year is "From Mashups to
Infrastructure," and COLLADA developer and
author
Remi Arnaud will present an abstract
titled "Content Authoring Using COLLADA"
Click here for details
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COLLADA at 07 Eurographics
See COLLADA at 07 Eurographics in the Game
Industry Presentations Program.
Dynamic Content Creation Using COLLADA
will be presented by Remi Arnaud, Sony
SCEA.
Click
here for details
07 Eurographics
Prague, Czech Republic
September 3 - 7, 2007
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