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Towards a 3D asset standard - COLLADA in Softimage|XSI

Towards a 3D asset standard - COLLADA in Softimage|XSI. Alexandre Jean Claude team lead – rendering/data management/pipeline SOFTIMAGE/AVID. SOFTIMAGE. Subsidiary of AVID Technology Inc. 3D content creation tools for games and visual effects Strong focus on characters

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Towards a 3D asset standard - COLLADA in Softimage|XSI

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  1. Towards a 3D asset standard - COLLADA in Softimage|XSI Alexandre Jean Claude team lead – rendering/data management/pipeline SOFTIMAGE/AVID

  2. SOFTIMAGE • Subsidiary of AVID Technology Inc. • 3D content creation tools for games and visual effects • Strong focus on characters • Khronos contributor member Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., delivers innovative, artist-friendly character creation and effects tools to animators and digital artists in the film, broadcast, post-production and games industries. Its product line includes SOFTIMAGE|XSI, the industry's only non-destructive digital character production software, and SOFTIMAGE|Face Robot, the first production toolset that multiplies face animation productivity by simplifying the complex process of preparing the face for animation and by giving artists precise control over the results.

  3. Agenda • Our history with COLLADA • Why COLLADA ? • Architectural overview • COLLADA in game authoring • COLLADA in general interop • COLLADA in workgroups and collaborative workspaces • Demo • Conclusion

  4. Our history with COLLADA • Started participating on designing COLLADA since 2004 • Released our first plug-in in August 2004 • Released 6 other versions afterwards • Fully integrated and supported in Softimage|XSI in 2006 • Part of our ongoing interop strategy

  5. Why COLLADA ? • Feature rich and well documented • A very good set of 3D data can be stored in COLLADA files (geometry, effects, physics, etc.) • XML syntax makes it easy to parse • Documentation is exhaustive, tons in information on COLLADA forums • Growing industry adoption • Mostly games right now • Film is looking at it • Growing integration in tools • XSI, Maya, Max, Sketchup, Blender, etc. (you saw the list in the Sony presentation ) • Collaboratively designed by multiple parties under an independent body • Non-proprietary • Feedback from a larger crowd • Leverage expertise from different companies • License to use is very permissive

  6. Architectural overview XSI Face Robot Viewer Max Game Softimage | FTK Semantic Layer IO Layer COLLADA dotXSI

  7. Architectural overview • The Softimage|FTK (File Tool Kit) is the main hub for data interop support in XSI • Currently supports dotXSI and COLLADA natively • Other converters and applications are using it extensively • Provides access to COLLADA data with an object model API • Available as a standalone library • The IO layer • Basic IO functions to write and parse COLLADA files • SAX-like interface to access COLLADA elements • Templates (elements) • Parameters (content) • Attributes • The semantic layer • DOM-like interface to access COLLADA elements • Adds semantics to the COLLADA elements • Complete scene graph description • Scene • Models • Hierarchies • Animation • Materials • Etc.

  8. Architectural overview XSI FTK converter Softimage | FTK COLLADA dotXSI

  9. Architectural overview • FTK converter • Converter that translates XSI content to the FTK and vice versa • Source code is provided with the XSI SDK • Translation features • Provides unified support for COLLADA and dotXSI • Provides COLLADA IO services in XSI for other tools (e.g. Reference models) • Conditioning features • Convert to triangles • Plot, resample and compress animation • Plot deformation to shapes • Converts subdivision surfaces to meshes

  10. Geometry Textures Shaders Hierarchies Animation Physics Custom Characters Props Levels Delivery game data COLLADA in game authoring XSI Authoring XSI Conditioning Assembly XSI Conditioning Delivery Game

  11. COLLADA in game authoring • GPU Effects • COLLADA FX • CGFX • FX • 2D data • DDS • All major file formats • 3D data • COLLADA • dotXSI • FBX • OBJ • .X • SI3D • XSI • 3D data • COLLADA • dotXSI • FBX • OBJ • .X • SI3D • XSI XSI • 2D data • DDS • All major file formats • 3D data • COLLADA • dotXSI • FBX • OBJ • .X • SI3D • XSI • 3D data • COLLADA • dotXSI • FBX • OBJ • .X • SI3D • XSI • 3D data with external bindings • COLLADA • dotXSI • FBX • OBJ • .X • SI3D • XSI • GPU Effects • COLLADA FX • CGFX • FX

  12. COLLADA in game authoring • The glue that binds the pipeline together is COLLADA • COLLADA is rich enough to store most of the data that need to go through the pipeline • COLLADA can reference other documents, making it very flexible to manage assets • COLLADA integration in XSI • Produce COLLADA assets • Modify COLLADA assets • XSI has a toolset that is useful at these stages • Authoring • Post-authoring conditioning • Assembly • XSI kick-ass tools can be used in a non-XSI centric pipeline • Gator • Ultimapper • Animation mixer • Etc.

  13. COLLADA in general interoperability • General interoperability requirements are a super set of the features required by game authoring • Software rendering support • Complex rigs (IK, constraints, expressions) • COLLADA provides a very good base for 3D interoperability, but lacks specialized data • Additional requirements for extensibility and user custom data • COLLADA <extra> is perfect for this task • Each tool can attach their own <extra> to persist their specific parameters • COLLADA integration in XSI preserves all <extra> perfectly making it very interoperable with other tools

  14. COLLADA in workgroups and collaborative workspaces • Reference models allow several artists to share 3D assets • A Master hierarchy (XSI model) is stored on disk • A scene can instantiate multiple references of this XSI model (reference model) • Local changes can be applied to each reference • XSI supports reference models in multiple storage formats • Native XSI • dotXSI • COLLADA

  15. COLLADA in workgroups and collaborative workspaces • Assembly of scene involving asset created by multiple parties • Use reference models to externally reference 3D assets • Multi task on 3D assets (i.e. rigging, modeling, animating) • Rig, geometry and animation are stored in different COLLADA files • They are assembled in the final scene 3D character DCC 1 Rig reference Rigger 3D asset (COLLADA file) DCC2 3D geometry reference Modeler 3D asset (COLLADA file) animation DCC2 Animator Animation file

  16. Demo

  17. Conclusion • COLLADA has grown to be a viable format for storing 3D assets because of its richness and its wide adoption • This maturity allows it to be used in a multitude of scenarios that were simply impossible to accomplish before • Softimage is strongly committed in continuing to develop and integrate applications that talk to COLLADA as well as designing its future specs

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