Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Building a Rock-Solid Content
Pipeline with the COLLADA
Conformance Test Suite
Paula Berinstein and Rémi Arnaud
If there's one message emanating from the 3D content creation community these days, it's “Ouch!” We all know why.
There's too much pain in the 3D content creation pipeline: incompatible formats, obsolescence of older material,
platform limitations, and so on. Fortunately, there's something we can do to ease the pain: create tools that adhere to
open standards, such as COLLADA, a royalty-free, open standard schema for exchanging 3D assets.
It's no wonder that the digital world is embracing openness. Digital citizens are realizing that the more
proprietary their tools and formats, the more constrained they are, and the more money and time they have to spend
in order to do their work. Often they find themselves recreating assets that already exist, just so they can exchange
them with other team members or clients, or make them work with the latest version of their software. Tools and
formats that use open standards enable them to be more productive and creative because components move
effortlessly along the pipeline, freeing up creators to do what they do best: make cool stuff.
COLLADA, which is maintained by The Khronos Group, a nonprofit industry consortium, is defined by an XML
namespace and schema that specify a list of features every COLLADA partner has agreed to support. The Khronos
Group has devised a rigorous set of conformance tests for 3D tools that use COLLADA to help insure frictionless
import and export operations. The tests have recently been open sourced and are now available at
Khronos wants to make it easy to achieve conformance, so they've devised two ways to license the tests. The
Adopters Package
is designed for vendors who want to be able to use Khronos technology logos and trademarks in
their product marketing. The
Implementers Package
is aimed at developers and open source communities with
more limited resources. Adopters pay a modest fee and get significant value: when your product passes the tests,
you may submit the results to Khronos and earn the right to use the COLLADA trademarks and claim conformance.
Your customers can buy your products with confidence, knowing that their output will be clean and easy to use with
other tools. Implementers also get a great deal, but with limitations: you may download and use the tests for FREE,
and, if you pass, use the “COLLADA™”
text
trademark, but you can't use the official COLLADA logo trademark or
claim conformance. The Implementers Package is a great deal because you get a verified set of test cases and a testing
framework that you can run as many times as you like in order to perform unit and regression testing—for nothing! If
you had to write those tests yourself, you could spend thousands!
Membership in Khronos is not required in either case, but if you join, you get even more benefits, including
access to all Khronos specifications and documentation, early access to the draft specifications, the ability to
participate in work groups and the development of the specs and tests, discounted Adopter fees, and more.
