what features of the collada format are supported in ibooks author? has anyone worked through this?

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Level 1

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what features of the collada format are supported in ibooks author? has anyone worked through this?

I have been experimenting with inserting a collada file into an ibooks author file, via the 3D widget. I use SketchUp and Modo to create the textured object, but I am having trouble getting anything other than a 'tumbling' view of the object in ibooks. I want to set a camera in the scene, and be able to see that POV (point of view) from within ibooks. I would also like to animate the camera, so I can create a controlled, first-person walk-through of the scene. So far, I haven't had any luck. If anyone else has sorted through some of this, please chime in here.

Thanks!

Posted on May 15, 2012 2:56 PM

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Answer 1

K T

Level 7

23,877 points

May 15, 2012 3:04 PM in response to pggirvin

Seen this?

iBooks Author: Best practices for using 3D models - Support - Apple

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Answer 2

pggirvin Author

Level 1

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May 15, 2012 3:13 PM in response to K T

Sure, I've read through that, thanks. It is way too high level and doesn't answer my questions. A few example .dae files would go a looooong way, along with a definitive list of what collada nodes are supported. Thanks for trying.

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Answer 3

K T

Level 7

23,877 points

May 15, 2012 4:02 PM in response to pggirvin

Which version plug-in?

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Answer 4

pggirvin Author

Level 1

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May 15, 2012 4:26 PM in response to K T

It's iBooks Author version 1.1, as far as a version number for the 3D widget, I went throught the package contents but I don't see anything there that identifies any particular version number of the widget.

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Answer 5

K T

Level 7

23,877 points

May 15, 2012 4:28 PM in response to pggirvin

plug-in...are you using a collada plug-in with anything?

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Answer 6

pggirvin Author

Level 1

5 points

May 15, 2012 5:53 PM in response to K T

K_T,

Have you personally tried authoring iBooks with 3D objects that you have modelled? This is the sort of help I am looking for.

Surely someone in this community has attempted this with some persistence?

Thanks.

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Answer 7

May 16, 2012 5:29 AM in response to pggirvin

Hi pggirvin,

We are awaiting upload for a book with lots of 3D Widgets, and had to do a lot of it via trial and error ( using 3DS Max to export to Collada ).

We did get an animating camera working, but as soon as you touch the widget the animation stops and you go into look around mode - where the pivot to rotate around is normally not where you want it to be.

A good option would be for animated cameras to a) play once, then pivot and end, or b) continuously loop

Just to clarify, 3D Widgets in iBooks Author do support an animating camera ( we had issues with multiple cameras, as only one gets choses, so maybe make sure you only have one camera in the whole scene when exporting ).

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Answer 8

pggirvin Author

Level 1

5 points

May 16, 2012 6:03 AM in response to Mal_CanDo3D

Thanks!

I'm using Modo to create the Collada files, myself. Your response is very clear. Any idea what point iBooks uses as the pivot point?

I believe you can also animate objects (like planets in a solar system, for example), but I wonder if the animation continues once you start interacting with the model. From your description of what occurs with an animated camera, I would assume the animation would stop and revert to starting position, but perhaps the camera is a unique situation.

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Answer 9

May 16, 2012 6:18 AM in response to pggirvin

Hi pggirvin,

We have animating objects in our iBook scenes ( non-camera ), and they loop continuously throughout the interactions.

There are two bugs we saw though, and reported...

1) Maximising and minimising a 3D widget will stop animations

2) Moving the page slightly left / right and releasing will stop animations

Our book is currently being held in queue for the last 7 days due to this bug ( they say the 3D animation not working on a certain page ), after being uploaded for nearly 4 weeks, and we haven't had any response from the iBooks team after sending two requests. We'll prob upload a new version tomorrow, but if they try another animating 3D widget and do either 1) or 2), we will get the same bug report back and resulting delay.

So much for trying to push and show off some of their new iBook Author features!!!

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Answer 10

May 16, 2012 6:43 AM in response to pggirvin

> Any idea what point iBooks uses as the pivot point?

We think it's the bounding sphere of the whole scene, but need to double check this.

We've left iBook Author development until we get feedback on our first iBook when it's finally released.

The last week we worked on it, out of an 8 hour day we maybe spent 6 hours waiting for the machine to recover from iBook Author crashes. Saving a version, publishing, importing new 3D, exporting - all of these crashed practically every other time.

We only thought that process was frustrating - trying to get the book approved and into the bookstore with little or no feedback is even more frustrating 😟 We've been trying to connect with Apple, as we spent easily 20k+ resources on this so far, but with not being able to get direct contact it's putting us off spending more time on similar iBook projects.

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Answer 11

pggirvin Author

Level 1

5 points

May 16, 2012 7:11 AM in response to pggirvin

Mal_CanDo3D, thanks for the replies with your (frustrating) experience. Apple really has to work on teasing apart "secrecy" from "transparency". I understand their great desire for secrecy in development, but the lack of transparency in responding to issues is pretty galling. Especially when you're throwing money at it.

I statused this as "answered", even though there are many more things to know. I am trying to work this through (Luxology) Modo folks as well. If I find something out there, I'll post a link to it here.

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Answer 12

Dlym

Level 1

5 points

Oct 2, 2012 7:21 PM in response to Mal_CanDo3D

I would second that the pivot seems to be the bounding box of the scenes geometry.

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