After a lot of exporting, testing in preFab, and testing in Flash with
Away3D's Collada loader, I have determined that the following works
for me:
-Collada plugin .dae export, with simple joints and animation
-Maya .dae export, with simple joints and animation
When I say "simple" above, I mean without using Maya's rigging
controllers for animation. Throw in a controller (even one without
animation -- just add it to the rigging) and the Collada parser chokes
[*error output below].
Our problem is, controllers make animating a model much more
straightforward for our modelers. Plus, they significantly reduce
overhead when doing repetitive animations across models (we expect
dozens, maybe hundreds of similar animations across models).
If the controllers themselves cannot be imported into Away3D, does
anyone know of a way of getting Maya to convert the results of a
controller-based animation into a format Away3D understands?
* error output follows:
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null
object reference.
at away3d.loaders::Collada/parseNode()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d
sandbox/away3d source/src/away3d/loaders/Collada.as:574]
at away3d.loaders::Collada/parseNode()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d
sandbox/away3d source/src/away3d/loaders/Collada.as:555]
at away3d.loaders::Collada/parseScene()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d
sandbox/away3d source/src/away3d/loaders/Collada.as:453]
at away3d.loaders::Collada/prepareData()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d
sandbox/away3d source/src/away3d/loaders/Collada.as:406]
at away3d.loaders::AbstractParser/parseGeometry()[/Users/adroit/dev/
away3d sandbox/away3d source/src/away3d/loaders/AbstractParser.as:419]
at main/createScene()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d sandbox/src/main.mxml:
74]
at main/___main_Button1_click()[/Users/adroit/dev/away3d sandbox/src/
main.mxml:131]
