hey Stefan I would say, the most important is to make the right difference between the asset and the file on disk. The asset is just a concept, often just an entry in whatever storage unit you choose with metadatas and bind to a file on disk. So to keep things simple, why not considering your asset as a zip archive on disk, in which you may use different file formats to store datas depending on the type of the asset and the application it's most often used in. Bundled with the archive, add it a json/xml/whatever file used to store the metadatas (creator, ctime, asset-type, ...) It becomes easy then when an asset is wanted to retrieve the adequat file (if exists) or run a converter (if needed). This allows you to keep application-specific file formats while not having trade-offs on their re-use in others by abstracting. Your asset manager don't know about the files but only about <assets>. Dont bother with file formats but make your asset manager enough solid to handle whatever is used underneath to store datas. --jon
2013/1/27 Stefan Andersson <sander...@gmail.com> > Hello everyone, > > I'm building a set of tools for a asset manager for Softimage. I've had it > working in Maya for a while, but I'm now converting it and re-writing it to > fit Softimage. I'm quite tempted to use Collada as it's a xml format and > pretty easy to work with. But I would like to hear what everyone else is > using? I *need* to be able to export it as collada or fbx for the model > assets so that it can be imported into other applications. The Rig/Sim > assets will be native emdl as they are only going to be used in softimage > (though I have my issues there too...). > > A few things my exporter is doing are > > * exporting MatLib with all materials > * exporting ColladaXML > * exporting/converting images to exr (via OIIO) > * parse MatLib and fix the filepaths for the textures (pointing at asset > location) > > > Big plus for using Collada > * will work with most applications > * can be used in Softimage as Reference > * xml based > > Big plus for FBX > * will work with most applications > > Big Minus for FBX > * can NOT be used in Softimage as Reference > * not a xml format (need to make your own parser) > > Big Minus for dotXSI > * tends to crash other applications when importing dotXSI > > Big Minus for emdl > * binary, impossible to edit > > So all of the above points towards Collada, but what do you guys think? > Any takers? > > regards > stefan > > > -- > *Stefan Andersson | Digital Janitor* > blog <http://sanders3d.wordpress.com> | showreel<http://vimeo.com/sanders3d>| > twitter <http://twitter.com/sanders3d> | > LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanders3d>| cell: +46-73-6268850 | > skype:sanders3d > > >
