Collada .dae export will get discontinued from Blender soon - what is the Lab's roadmap timeframe?
Peter Stindberg
I just learned that Blender will remove .dae export in version 4.5 (current version: 4.3). Apparently, Linden Lab was the last remaining user of note for .dae - the discussion on the issue can be found here: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/moving-collada-i-o-to-legacy-status/34621
Blender is a widely popular open source tool for mesh creation. The .dae format is the only format for mesh import currently supported. What is the Lab's roadmap-timing for the replacement?
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Gaia Clary
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to mention that there are still alternatives to the Blender Collada exporter, even though it’s unfortunate that it was dropped. I spent years maintaining it, despite limited support from the Blender team. Eventually, I had to let it go as they repeatedly indicated it wasn’t worth pursuing further.
That said, I maintain a Blender addon that includes its own Collada exporter, which will also be part of the upcoming versions for Blender 4. There are no plans to drop this feature anytime soon.
By the way, we did consider developing our own Collada importer at one point. However, given the uncertain future of Collada, we decided not to pursue that direction. That said, I’m open to revisiting this idea if there is significant community demand for it.
Darien Caldwell
You don't have to keep upgrading blender. I personally still use 2.79 and probably will for decades to come.
Orion Greymoon
Sounds like a great comment / discussion in the new "Friends of Phillip" group chat.
ST33LDI9ITAL Resident
It’s just being removed from the main package. It will still be available through addon. Although doubtfully supported or maintained.
Gaia Clary
ST33LDI9ITAL Resident I do not think that the Blender Collada module will become available as separate addon, because it was written in c++ and fully integrated into the blender core.
daPhuk Resident
While it would be interesting to know if, when and how the Lab deals with new mesh file types, this specific issue seems to be slightly blown out of proportion here. There's a lotta unknowns we're dealing with and no — the sky is not falling once again. Current Blender versions still have the exporter, whether it's marked as "Legacy" or not is irrelevant — it works. LL will certainly not willfully sit on a solution for a fading file format that quite literally makes their entire product. And even if all fails and LL has no import solution for meshes within the GLTF pipeline or otherwise when Blender axes the Collada exporter completely... We can still simply use an old(er) Blender version just as an exporter... It's a non-issue.
Zy Butcher
Most people use Avastar, which takes years to get an update and it may be an abandoned project even. Would a switch from COLLADA mean animators would run out of applications to make their animations?
Etheria Parrott
Zy Butcher I'm not sure what you mean by years. Updates for Blender 3.6LTS (which is still supported by Blender until June) have been ongoing. Gaia Clary works very hard to keep up with the code changes made by Blender which have turned working with bones completely upside down twice now. That has meant a complete rewrite of thousands of lines of Avastar code, twice. Avastar 4 for Blender 4 is due out by Christmas if all goes well. Access to the alpha is already available if you have a current licence. Most of the support and information is carried out in the Avastar Discord. The link to the Discord is in Blender Avastar inworld group info. Avastar contains its own dae exporter which will remain as long as it's needed. GLTF will be supported when required.
Extrude Ragu
Zy Butcher Avastar should no longer be required with GLTF, since the plan is to fully support the spec it will be possible to create a vaild skeleton using only Blender's built in tools. Plugins will be a nice to have rather than a necessity.
Zy Butcher
Extrude Ragu I appreciate Avastar's efforts, yeah. But at the same time there should not be any need for it.
Zy Butcher
Etheria Parrott Thank you for your response :)
Vincent Nacon
GLTF is the replacement, it's currently being developed. They're working on hooking up the animation stuff and nodes stuff.
Peter Stindberg
Vincent Nacon Yes, it's the designated replacement. But we have a gap now: for two Blender releases already, Collada is missing, but GLTF import has not materialized yet. Thus my question about the roadmap.
Vincent Nacon
Peter Stindberg Yeah, I got the impression from them that having a deadline is kinda defeats the purpose because you can never know what sort of issues they'll be having along the way.
(They did find quite a few.)
Either ways, just because Blender advances with their update, does not mean you have to use it. You still can keep using Blender 2.8 for SL in the meantime. Plenty of builders do this for the specific bespoke plugins rather than because of SL's Collada format. I suspect most of them will stay behind, even after SL updates it... that is until those plugins are updated. :/ Blender's 4.3 beta version already broke a lot of old non-SL-related plugins from what I've seen, so I wouldn't expect smooth sailing anytime soon.
They had expressed interest in having Principled BSDF system after GLTF update in some discussions.
Just to be clear, nothing is official yet.
*Nyx Onyx
Peter Stindberg I'm not sure which versions of Blender you've been seeing this in, but I now looked in Blender 4.3.0 and the 4.3.1 RC and they both have the Collada export. Might it be in Alpha? And no, I'm seeing it in the alpha of today as well.
Peter Stindberg
Nyx Onyx
Starting from Blender 4.2LTS release, Collada file format support will be marked as legacy. This means that only minimal maintenance effort will be spent on it from now on, and that it will be removed in a later release (either 4.5 LTS, or 5.0).
I am still on 4.1, the friend who alerted me to it had 4.2 and 4.3 updated via a packet manager and it was gone.
Nyx Onyx
Peter Stindberg Well I don't know about the package manager and what it installed, but the current alpha of today for Windows x64 at https://builder.blender.org/download/daily/ has it, even though yes, it's marked as Legacy, it's still there in that one. And though it could go away in 4.5 or 5.x, just like GLTF could go away in Blender 8.x in the future, there's still time for LL to get their GLTF uploads working, and then something else after that as time changes. Regarding 4.3.x, you see it in the screenshot. Again, that's Windows x64, perhaps it's different in your friend's version for some reason?
Peter Stindberg
Nyx Onyx She uses Linux (Arch, as she would let you know).
Nyx Onyx
Peter Stindberg I guess that's what it is then! Blender's manual pages doesn't mention the exclusion of the feature in any specific distribution that I could see though. I wonder if that's the way for other Linux distros of Blender too.
Peter Stindberg
Nyx Onyx The 4.3 version for Mac still has it as well - just checked - but marked as "Legacy".
Regarding the initial post: I'd still be curious about the timeframe.
Nyx Onyx
Peter Stindberg From what I've heard at the Content Creator User Group meetings I understand that the focus is on getting the ExtraFPS viewer version out with the priority being on getting less capable machines working with SL again. After that I think they will put focus on GLTF. I understand that they want to support as much of the GLTF spec as possible at launch though, delaying the process. Then I guess they need to redesign a bunch of stuff in pipeline and UI, for generating physics models, and thinking about how to do with stuff that today is part of or optional in the upload process. I would hazard a guess that we should have GLTF before Easter, in RC maybe end of February, what do you think? We already have GLTF Preview viewer side in the Developer menu...
Peter Stindberg
Nyx Onyx For the time being, I am only interested in uploading meshes. The whole PBR thing has left me very disappointed, and it cost the Lab a lot of trust and goodwill with me. So far, no "performance improvements" have manifested themselves for my 5 year old high end Mac, which turns into a loud, hot snail as soon as I run any(!) PBR-viewer. I believe in "extra FPS" when I see it. But that is another issue.
That said, I couldn't care less for anything remotely connected to PBR, and only care about uploading meshes. With the above in mind, and the trust the PBR debacle has killed, I will be very sceptical about a mesh upload option that is located in the whole PBR cosmos.
Of course the Lab is not to blame for Blender's decision to phase Collada out. But I'd feel more comfortable if instead fbx or obj would be an import option.
Addendum: I try to keep an open mind. There are highly skilled individuals at the Lab, and with Philip hopefully bringing back some down-to-earth into management decisions, there might still be a happy end.
Nyx Onyx
Peter Stindberg I won't comment on the PBR stuff and the mistakes with its implementation, but the ExtraFPS version is their priority at the moment, and I don't think they'll be ready with GLTF at the time of its release, it's not mentioned at all in the release notes https://releasenotes.secondlife.com
However you might get some clues regarding its progress if you follow the various posts / comments at https://github.com/secondlife/viewer/labels/gltf
As for other formats of uploads, I'm not entirely sure what the Lab can do as long as they're choosing to work with Khronos. This page here might give you some ideas what's in the "Khronos world": https://www.khronos.org/developers
Crexon Resident
Peter Stindberg PBR is tied to GlTF. thats WHY the whole reason for push to go to PBR was for in the first place. All the old things outside of SL are going away, collada, opengl and many many libary and packages are no longer updated and full of security holes.