[www-vrml] exporters for your 3D authoring app

[Aaron Bergstrom <Aaron.Bergstrom@ndsu.nodak.edu>]

Andrea,

I completely feel your pain. Last year I was dying for an X3D exporter 
for Maya, or at least a better VRML exporter. At the 2003 Siggraph, I 
was told a simple story... and I relate this as a frustrated person 
working in the field of archaeology/human heritage visualization.

A person said to me, "Physicists learned to program because computer 
scientists would not do it for them. Welcome to the club."

He said this in response to my comment on how I absolutely needed a good 
VRML/X3D plugin for Maya. I wanted an X3D plugin for Maya, and taking 
his advice - which was essetially, "If you want it, you'll have to make 
it yourself." - I, a Maya user and Alias customer, approached Alias and 
ask for what I needed to create an X3D exporter. As a guy who has a BS 
in Anthrpology and is working on his MS in Anthropology, believe me, 
it's been a struggle for me to learn C++, and to learn MEL well enough 
to deliver a prototype X3D exporter for Maya.

It's a bit of tough love, and I hate to admit it, but the guy was right. 
If you want an exporter for your software, you may have to take it upon 
yourself to develop it. So here is what I optimistically suggest, that 
you be the person to contact Newtek. Somebody needs to lead the charge 
for your software of choice, it might as well be you. On the bright 
side, if it is you leading the charge, you have input on how to fix all 
the things you didn't like about the old Lightwave VRML exporter. Last 
year I had the same attitude as you when learning that there was a 
movement to make an X3D exporter for Max... I thought "But not every one 
uses Max!" Let Newtek know you want an X3D exporter. See if you can help 
them out by building it yourself or organizing a group to work on it as 
open source software.

Anyway, It's been a year's worth of effort, but it has been worth it. I 
now have what I wanted, a free (open source) X3D exporter for Maya. Sure 
it can still use some work, but it's a start.

Aaron
--
Aaron.Bergstrom@ndsu.nodak.edu
Computer Visualization Manager
Archaeology Technologies Laboratory, NDSU
http://atl.ndsu.edu/
701-231-6434

andrea wrote:

> I would use X3D, and I'm sure other people would too if it were an 
> export plugin for the 3D modeler animation package they use.
> Not everyone uses Maya or 3Dstudio Max...there are a lot of people 
> working in Lightwave. Who could the consortium contact at Newtek to 
> get X3D as an export from Lightwave?
> Andrea
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