COLLADA Overview Presentation at GDC San Francisco 2009.

1. Bruno Patatas - Biodroid
March 2009
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 1

2. • Brief overview of COLLADA
• COLLADA 1.4 and 1.5 (and what it means to the games industry)
• Case Study: ZbluCops – Wii game being developed by Biodroid
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3. • COLLADA is designed as an intermediate language for 3D content and is a
neutral interchange format between several industries
- Video Games
- Film and Entertainment
- Mechanical Engineering
- GIS
- Visual Simulation
• COLLADA defines an “intermediate” format
- Doesn’t try to define the beginning (authoring) or end (run-time acceleration) of the pipeline
- Designed for moving content along the content pipeline
• Freedom to innovate!
- COLLADA provides stability and flexibility so authoring toolchains and run-time engines can
evolve independently
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4. • COLLADA is a XML database schema for 3D assets
- Can hold everything to do with a scene: geometry with full skinning, advanced material and
- visual effects, animation, physical properties and collisions
• COLLADA can be used to transport 3D assets between applications
- Enables binding of diverse DCC and 3D processing tools into a production pipeline
• COLLADA can be lossless – never lose information
- Retains all information - even multiple versions of the same asset
• COLLADA is an open, archive-grade format that retains meta information
– When your DCC tool upgrades, you keep your assets
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5. • Mesh Geometry
• Transform hierarchy (rotation, translation, shear, scale, matrix)
• Materials / Textures
• Shader programs (Cg, GLSL, GLES)
• Shader effects (FX)
• Lights / Cameras
• Skinning / Morphing
• Animation
• Physics (rigid bodies, constraints, rag dolls, collision volumes)
• Instancing
• Techniques / Multi-representations
• Assets / Libraries
• User data
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 5

6. • B-rep (boundary representation) descriptions of complex
CAD objects
- Enables complex models to be rebuilt and modified exactly - with less data than meshes
• Kinematics
- Joints and Compound joints with Definition of degree-of-freedom using MathML formulas
• Accurate geo-referencing of assets – latitude, longitude and
altitude
- GIS applications can blend real and virtual 3D assets
• “.ZAE” archive package specification (Zipped Asset
Exchange)
- Enables distribution through the warehouses such as Google 3D Warehouse
- Will be support in SketchUp version 7, due out later this summer
• Games and Graphics
- Enhanced profiles for rendering systems - including OpenGL ES 2.0
- Bridge profiles for tools frameworks such as CgFX
- Improved texturing and multi-pass effects
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7. • COLLADA.org is the place to look for tools to help in game
development pipelines
• Autodesk Plug-ins
- ColladaMaya and ColladaMax open source project on sourceforge.net for Maya, 3ds Max, and
MotionBuilder
- ColladaMaya NextGen and ColladaMax NextGen
• Coherency Test
- XML validation + content coherency checker
- An open source Refinery conditioner
• COLLADA Asset Manager
– Asset management tool developed in windows .net
– Directed to artists, art directors and tool makers
• COLLADA RT
– COLLADA RT – example Run Time / viewer (PC (OpenGL), PS3 (PSGL)…
– COLLADA CFX – FX loader for Cg shader (companion to RT)
• COLLADA Refinery – processing content framework
– User interface to create the conditioning pipeline
– C++ conditioners can be combined
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 7

8. • COLLADA is the de facto asset interchange file format in game
development
• DCC Tools
- Maya
- 3ds Max
- Autodesk Softimage
- etc
• Game Engines
– Unreal Engine
– Gamebryo
– Torque 3D
– Virtools
– Unity
– etc
• GUI and HUD Creation
– Menus Master
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9. • Creation of COLLADA FX Document
- Created and edited in a shader authoring tool
• FX Composer 2.0; RenderMonkey
• Applied to 3D assets in a modeling package
– Maya, Max, Autodesk Softimage, etc
• 3D assets uploaded to Svn server
– Managed with COLLADA Asset Manager
• Assets loaded and used by Game Engine
– Unreal, Gamebryo, Torque 3D, Virtools, etc
– .dae file converted to run-time file format (eg. .nif files in
Gamebryo)
• Game runs in target hardware
– On any platform like PlayStation 3, XBOX360, etc
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10. © Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 10

11. • ZbluCops is an action/adventure game being developed by Biodroid for Wii
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 11

12. • Animation and Modeling
- Maya
- Autodesk Softimage
• 3d Asset management
– Svn server
– COLLADA Asset Manager
• Texturing
– Photoshop CS3 Extended
• Game Engine
– Emergent’s Gamebryo
• Coding
– Visual Studio 2005
– CodeWarrior for Wii
• Sound Engine
– Wwise
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 12

13. bruno@biodroid-entertainment.com
© Copyright Khronos Group, 2009 - Page 13