Bots in PaperVision3D

Note: When debugging, always assume that the problem you don't know how to fix is what is causing trouble. In this case, it's the Collada files exported by Maya3d. For what ever reason, Papervision3D parses them as invalid. Importing the file into Blender and then exporting back to *.dae works just fine, however.

And now, on with the show.


I haven't applied color or shaders to the object yet, so all we are getting is a wire frame with randomly colored connecting lines. I think the shaders from Maya3D are what is causing the 'invalid file' error, and the next step I'll attempt is using Maya to just bake the textures to image files, and load from those.

Finally, for those who are interested in how this actually works, this demo was constructed from the tutorial located at Papervision2. When the time it takes to get the .dae file corrected is greater then the time it takes to write the code, you know you've found some great resources.

Total time invested in this one demo: 3 hours.
1 hour to find no bugs in Papervision3d while wondering why the file doesn't load.
1 hour to edit .dae files by hand. At least XML is better then a binary file format.
1 hour to install Blender and associated scripts to fix the file, then tune the Flash file for internet distribution.