Clowning Colladas!

The title of this post is WAY more fun than the post itself.

Basically, after a wasted day yesterday of about a million random ways of exporting failed clown collada files, I decided to get organized and log the results. Here's what I have so far, in between forum post reading and such.

Here is a log of what I've tried so far, mainly for my own use, but I figured I'd put it on here just so I remember where in time I went through this craptastic series of events.

CLOWN01.DAE
- exported from blender as collada 1.4 with following settings:
triangles
only export selection (clown.001 (mesh) and clown (lattice))
sample animation
disable physics
use relative paths
use uv image mats
- STILL image works in pv3d with the following 'output':
INFO: Papervision3D Public Beta 2.0 - Great White (December 3rd, 2008)

INFO: DisplayObject3D: clown_001
INFO: BitmapFileMaterial: Loading bitmap from 3d/littleclown_uv.jpg
INFO: DisplayObject3D: clown


CLOWN02.DAE
-exported from blender as FBX with following settings:
selected objects (clown.001 (mesh) and clown (lattice))
scale 10
rotx90
empty, camera, lamp, armature, mesh, modifiers
enable animation, optimize keyframes, all actions
- converted in Autodesk FBX Converter. Fbx to DAE
- does not work in pv3d. gives the following output instead:

INFO: Papervision3D Public Beta 2.0 - Great White (December 3rd, 2008)

INFO: DisplayObject3D: blend_root
INFO: DisplayObject3D: clown_001
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/buildObject()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseGeometry()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseNode()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseNode()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseScene()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/buildCollada()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/onComplete()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()



CLOWN03.DAE
- exported from blender same as CLOWN01 but selected "bake matriices" as well.
- loads weird in pv3d- pink outlines, still image floating. gives output:
INFO: Papervision3D Public Beta 2.0 - Great White (December 3rd, 2008)

INFO: DisplayObject3D: clown_001
INFO: BitmapFileMaterial: Loading bitmap from 3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg
INFO: DisplayObject3D: clown
*** Security Sandbox Violation ***
Connection to file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/leanne/Desktop/pv3d/3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg halted - not permitted from file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/leanne/Desktop/pv3d/pv3d.swf
ERROR: BitmapFileMaterial: Unable to load file 3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg
ERROR: Collada failed to load material



CLOWN04.DAE
_NOTICED: lattice had unlinked from clown in clown03-- trying again with them linked this time.

Viewed video on Vertex Cache/ "baking" animation to mesh: http://vimeo.com/2261907

CLOWN05:
- Used above video to bake animation onto mesh (as a matter of speaking).
-exported as DAE 1.4 with
triangles
only export selection (clownex)
bake matrices
sample animation
disable physics
use relative paths
use uv image mats
- exported as a pink, tiny clown... couldn't tell if it was animated or not because it was too small. here is the flash output:
INFO: Papervision3D Public Beta 2.0 - Great White (December 3rd, 2008)

INFO: DisplayObject3D: clownex
INFO: BitmapFileMaterial: Loading bitmap from 3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg
*** Security Sandbox Violation ***
Connection to file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/leanne/Desktop/pv3d/3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg halted - not permitted from file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/leanne/Desktop/pv3d/pv3d.swf
ERROR: BitmapFileMaterial: Unable to load file 3d/../littleclown_uv.jpg
ERROR: Collada failed to load material

CLOWN06:
-noticed that baking matrices results in a pink clown that is unable to use the UV image. attempted DAE 1.4 with same as above but turned bake matrices off.
-also resized the clown in blender.
-didn't make much of a difference. still pink outlines... i think i needed to "texture face" and turn that on.

CLOWN07:
-back to attempt fbx conversion.
-converted quads to triangles
- settings: selected objects, mesh and modifiers selected, enable animation, all actions.

Same freaking problem as before:
INFO: Papervision3D Public Beta 2.0 - Great White (December 3rd, 2008)

INFO: DisplayObject3D: blend_root
INFO: DisplayObject3D: clownex
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/buildObject()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseGeometry()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseNode()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseNode()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/parseScene()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/buildCollada()
at org.papervision3d.objects.parsers::Collada/onComplete()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()

CLOWN08:
made a new scene, deleted everything but the clown.
-exported current animation, same exact error output as clown07.

So what now? I also attempted exporting a series of obj files to import into Maya, but it crashed the computer... I think it made 160 OBJs, 1 per frame. That wouldn't have really worked I don't think...

I need to vent a little: This is day 3 of the same old problem. I am pretty stuck, and starting to get worried. It was my plan to have all of this completed by July 8, and at this rate... it is really not looking as if that will happen. I really don't want to give up on this, because there HAS to be a way to get an animation out of blender and into Papervision, but there is too much information on the internet that skirts the issue of what I need. Or if I read something I don't think will be helpful at all, and then realize it might be, it takes forever to find it again. Furthermore, if so many people on the internet are having this problem, why aren't developers working on it? And if they solved it, nice of them to tell anyone about it. I really want to do another search on this, but I can't stomach reading all the other posts I've read a hundred times over again.

Well venting's really not doing me a lot of good at the moment and I am a little angry to be writing an academic paper. I guess it's onto the fun part. I need a fun, rewarding task for the time being... Interface design?