Project Idea: Advanced Maya Model Exporter

ok, if you are not interested in the instructions WHY i post, skip these lines and continue where i talk about the idea!

at the moment i am studying media informatics and in the next semester (beginning in octobre and ending in february) i have to work out a project that combines two disciplines: multi media applications (basically it is about web services + "clustered applications") and human computer interaction (concept of an application while focusing on the human actions and how to support them)

as i know for my self maya already has an smd exporter that is pretty much the example of how to not make a user interface. and in addition to this crappy solution there is no support for smd export to build a model database and share content with others while exporting/saving files.

Idea:

creating a modified exporter that give the user the opportunity to easily export models and putting them into a database. users should be able to manage the content of their projects within maya with the exporter. for example person A creates a model of bridge. person B works on a different model. both export their models and upload them to the database while exporting. with a sync operation both computers get resources and compiled data.

Person A uses the bridge model ingame and then notices "oh we dont need backfaces because it is a 3d sky model. players wont access it." then he can directly open the model (because he got it from database) and might change it the way he needs it. then while saving he creates a subversion and uploads it to the DB. so every person working on a project knows what is going on and can work together. maybe if some person is not avaible but someone needs the sources.

for a lot of modding teams there is no money to invest in expensive version systems like alienbrain. with an embedded version control into the exporter those teams would profit.

so what do you think of this idea? might this be something nice? do you have any other ideas? while giving comments please take in mind that this project HAS TO implement a web service (this would be the database that would be accessed) and a human computer interaction part where the GUI has to be easy to use while offering complete control for each user profile. maybe it should be customizeable.

Quote from Sa74n

mhh.. i think subversion might be a solution that works good enough.http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

its free and includes more then just model libraries. its the whole project tree. its easy to set up and use too.

the only difference i see in your idea is that you basically export+upload it directly into the library/tree. but what if you wanted to try and see if the model worked nicely in engine before you replace or add files that everyone can use?

or maybe i just didnt get your idea

you pretty much captured my idea. i agree with you that SVN is nice, but as i remeber from my days at 4head studios i remind that i was a pain in the ass to export stuff. start alienbrain that eats like 500MB ram, checkout the model. open the model. dont use double click or maya fucks up. so browse to location and open it. edit it. export it. check if everything is ok. upload it again. checkin.

this was really big suck imho. what i dream of is a complete one click export. hit export. everything gets compiled. hlmv opens and you might check for result. if something is not working reexport. model gets saved each time. so you et a complete history. nothing gets lost.

what i think that would be nice is a community sharing feature. you can fill a database with models and access it via webservice. so you can get data on every system. even a PDA or mobile phone would be able to access content. btw webservice != website. webservice is more like extern access to methods and functions + data. for example you could have a math web service. give a webservice a math exercise and call the solve function. after the webservice finished calculation it returns the value. it is kind of simple but offers access to all kinds of applications/devices. if you want to extend this: people could easily update custom content for beta maps and dont have to redownload every map in full size.

even there are attemps of solutions i dont feel fully supported by them. it always feels strange to open a second application and manually do stuff. in that case i could use ftp too.

ideas are still appreciated

but this would require more advanced 3d skills + more time and it lacks the webservice feature. how should this look like?

oh and btw: 70% of the final "rating" will be based on the concept. it is not important to get this thing on track 100%. if you make a good concept and implement like 5 of 10 features you get a 1.0

if you have a small concept documentation and implement everything you get like 4.0 or 3.0 maybe you have to do it again and get 5.0

focus is on conept work. so making this project to complex would not make it easier because focus is not on code. more on ideas, users etc.

requesting spline features for hammer editor to align displacements would be much too complex as i could solve them with my current 3d programming knowledge. though the software would have to run with steam system and enter gcf files and stuff. this is MUCH too complex in my eyes. there is no good documentation on valve specific file formats