Radagast.

*bump* edited: added detailed list of our ideas and plans. hope I can delete this bump post ... The and treasure guards we can realize as mini civ, perhaps in combination with triggers. Perhaps need to add some logic to the AI to defend treasures more vigorously. If we only make half of those features happen, then .

Well done Niek, this [pdf file] will be useful for creating the directory structure for standalone mods. Even though I plan to even support all files mixed and in one folder in a archive file (zip, tar.gz, ...). The files for standalone mods mostly can be put into the correct folders automatically. It's a bit unlucky in pyrogenesis that props are treated separately. In the Rogue Republic Mod they tested entity on entity and it worked to put any object as a prop on any other. Even the correct animations are played - but it's loosing its independence. It's tied too tightly to the main actor. Nevertheless it's a really nice gameengine, it's difficult enough to make it even that far as it currently is. I just mention it because I saw the prop folder in your nice pdf file. Cool, today we made two tutorials. Me the 0AD JavaScript Blizzard Start for UNIX and you the entity one. We will make things happen. It has already begun. Keep up the work, colleagues, I'm backing your efforts, ask if I can lend a hand. Edit: Missed a lot of posts. @niek: The AI was also talked about [in this thread]. Among other things. Really one big chunk. Also ideas that belong to several mods was talked about (mainly by me, my fault!). I think a subforum in a subforum is a not good. Let's keep Mod fora like they are, not? The Council is for organizing the mods and would indeed be cool as a parallel forum. Don't member skills go into the signatures? Should keep the data-spread as minimal as possible, yet all that is independent should be separate. @mod organizing: We now have GitHub strucuture for the dev.Each mod (Mod launcher, Collosseum, ...) could go into its own thread/topic, where we keep the 1st post up to date with a link to the latest release in github (so that we don't have to edit the post over and over again and don't have a version mess [remember: the version is still kept track of in the git! and it could go in the mod's json/xml file too.]).Bug reports go either as issues into github (as we the CoM can't use the official trac) or it shall be reported directly in the Mod manager, Campaigning, Colloseum, .. thread.At least this will keep the overhead at a min for the beginning. Agreed. It's superfluous currently as I'm occupied with more generic features/mods currently. For a more up to date version, see: -> CoM - Collection of Ideas <- Old list: (kept for readability and authenticity of this thread only) Legend : WIP JavaScript JavaScript&C++ C++ Low priority Upcoming HybridAI (purely additivie ontop of wraitii's tremendous efforts, introduces subdueing other civs and allow for civil wars or rebellion, among others, see below),Campaigning mod,Collosseum (gladiators, battle reenactments),Mod manager patch,Supply lines,Capturing mod (slaves, btw. you are right, this essentially is a selection change, can also change the model once captured, though continuing the old activity when captured will make trouble ... but that stop of activity is even desired for capturing),Coralling/herding mod,Mercenaries mod,Seasons patch,Night/day mod/patch,Units on walls workaround (if the 1x1 pathfinder finds its way, where is Philip, we need this guy back in 0AD).Moving from ship to ship,Battle on ship,Ships ramming each other causes damage,Weather (especially crucial in naval battles and in winter as your siege structures might get stuck in the snow while crossing the mountains),Allow construction of bridges (using entity on wall workaround too),Construction of eye-candy objects (e.g. fences, trees, ..),Animal reproduction (objects reproducing itself, at first simply following e.g. fibonacci),Units on/in trees,Entity on entity,Special units, like treasure guards or standard bearers whose standard may be captured by enemies,Unit variation (official 0AD team already working on this),Minimal unit scale/size variation (not easy to do),More friction between units/armies in battle,Constitution/stamina,Children (growing with time, has to be logarithm or at least saturating to prevent ever lasting growing - related to unit scale/size variation),School/teaching,Time (comes with Hybrid AI),Aging units,Uphill movement deccelerates, downhill makes entities accelerate,Introduction of Moral attribute mod,Loyalty attribute,Sympathy attribute,Cavalry rework to allow for more realism: moral effect, no deep penetration into enemy lines,Changing of weapons,Limited ammunition,Collecting of weapons/objects (inventar, related to entity on entity and prop system),Using objects as ammunition, e.g. allow slingers to collect stones from the ground, arrows from the battlefields, put it in the ox cart and send it somewhere to unload it ...Rework armour system [units get wounded quickly once the armour is damaged or did not withstand the force of the enemy thrust],Commander system (goes with the Hybrid semi-self-learning AI),Goods/resources represented as objects (low priority),Trigger mod (related to campaigning mod: a trigger on the map for building a storyline, this trigger needs to allow being registered within AIs/Players too. e.g. if you reach this fjord/bay, then this should trigger/dispatch a message to an AI to rais e alarm. Just as an example.).Unit will use resources (food). The more units, the more difficult to feed, making the population cap superfluous. The same is valid for animals.Reproduction but nothing to eat means famines and less births (can't be protected because parents have to search the whole day for food).Erosion of entities. => Houses that are closer less damage but units move slower.Paths, roads, and streets grow if units pass this way often or if the mayor/AI decides toconstruct roads.Aquaduct water transportation system.Digging through Mountains and Earth. You may build tunnels if you are besieged and have run out of food.History visualisation (like battle reenactment) and simulation.Long list, but I like it. Did I forget anything? What we see is that besides the Colloseum and the configuration/content files for The Tied to Roman Mod currently is only the standard bearers, Senate to configure the Hybrid AI for the ROME mod, almost all we're working on is not really currently. We will not start posting required unit lists too soon, won't we? If we do so, then a subforum for Rome might be useful, but I think we can leave the artists the freedom to create whatever they wish. I fully agree that the Council of Modders currently is much more important. So I back your opinion, Romulus. Good night. attribute

Thank you Stan, it shows again all the pitfalls of programming. Breaking is easy, for fixing everything needs to be right. A neverending story ... Today working, tomorrow useless. Did I mention I really dislike technology? But we will fight on, art and magic will get us through .. :: Wo has done all those smileys? Never seen so many available ... @Stan: Could you post a COLLADA file for the ox-cart and the biped rig you wanted to get into blender? I will give it a try and create error reports.

Okay, I give in resuming is very useful indeed. Didn't want to attack anyone. Finally Teiresias is a master of our guild. I remember his retrobot ... and have swiftly employed it for teaching purposes if that's okay. If I imagine using UPD for downloading 0AD ...

I support the points of my colleagues, especially it takes simply a lot of time and experience to a feel for how programming works just like Sander said. Once one got used to that, it's really no longer difficult, nevertheless, it might quickly turn into tedious work. Generally my feeling is that those guys and gals that take over university assistance jobs early and try to follow tutorials in different languages only to get magic projects done, are getting used to programming pretty quickly, especially if they are forced to program to not fail in university too (weekly exercise sheets... ). So as a quickstart: Start up Linux. The earlier you get used to UNIX-like systems (GNU/Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD, Android, ..) the better. Because though Windows is powerful too, it's tedious to keep up to a commercial firms plans and changes to improve their funding. A problem UNIX not suffers from. STRG+ALT+T to show up the terminal/console (alternatively look for a search field and type term.. and there you go).Then in the terminal type: sudo apt-get install gitIf that's not working, search the internet for "install git <you_operating_system>". (<> indicates a placeholder, so there your OS goes without those <> !!) Follow the instructions. Another common usecase for <> is for elements/tags in markup languages like HTML, XML, sure you will hear more about that soon.Back with focus on the terminal, create a directory for 0ad in you home folder (shortcut: ~) and enter this directory using cd <path-to>/<directory>: mkdir ~/0ad/ && cd ~/0ad #this sign begins a shell comment, it's ended automatically at EOL End Of Line, which is denoted as \r\n (\rewind\newline) commonly but you don't have to care for that.Now try to download the git repository: (in the correct folder, . means the current folder we're in: ~/0ad/) git clone https://github.com/0ad/0adWait for the download to finish, in the meantime search the internet for "JavaScript tutorial" and "javascript syntax reference". It's probably the best language to start with as Java is almost identical and more and more widespread in university teaching.Once the download has finished successfully:Go to http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildAndDeploymentEnvironment . Type STRG+F , then Linux. Follow the instructions for building on linux (it's only a few commands! it's easy!).If successful, there you go: ~/0ad/binaries/system/pyrogenesis #this will start your custom built 0adTip: Whenever you try to figure out a path or command in he terminal use the TABulator key! Type twice to list all possibilities, then pick one by typing the first letters and type TAB again to auto-complete.Once 0AD is started, first be surprised how much more advanced the up to date version is. Start any map, then type ALT+ENTER to switch to windowed mode (to allow to return to the terminal without closing 0ad).In the terminal: vi ~/0ad/binaries/data/mods/public/ #type TAB now to see a list of all folders and filesChoose the file you wish to edit: vi ~/0ad/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/ai/aegis/aegis.jsLook for Line 95. Then type i to enter INSERT mode.Type ENTER once. Then type (not copy or you will never learn programming) in these brilliant lines of the famous Teiresias now: if (!this._counter){ this._counter = 1;}this._counter++;// Every 25 time we enter this onUpdate function/mthod we perform a special action:if ((this._counter % 25) == 0){ var myEntities = this.entities.filter( function (ent/*<-An argument also called parameter.*/) { return ent.isOwn(PlayerID); } ).toEntityArray(); if (myEntities.length > 0) { var sacrifice = API3.PickRandom(myEntities); this.chat("This time we had to sacrifice " + sacrifice.templateName() + " to keep our gods from sending another famine!"); sacrifice.destroy(); //<-- has to be called after the chat message as we need its template name for the message. } /* extend here if you like, you could pick another unit and make it walk around ... read through the aegis files in the directory this file here is in to find out how to do that. */}/*Or insert here some other code/commands. e.g. if you don't want to perfrom this action every 25th time like the above but each 100th time, then retype the above code and change 25 to 100 .*//* Here starts the original code of the AI.*/Exit INSERT mode now using ESC. (if you have left INSERT MODE you can also undo changes by typing u)To save the additions we inserted, let's save the file. (make sure you are no longer in INSERT mode via ESC).Then type the command for writing (colon w): :wTo save and quit you would write: :wqTo quit without saving and hence lose all changes: :q!The cool thing with JavaScript is, that it can be changed while 0ad is running. So you see immediately if something breaks. => Switch to 0AD via ALT+TAB or similar. Look what you've done. I think we can only gain if we really teach the new generation. Although many people forget that Happy learning.

Didn't have a problem cloning the git repository to my local machine. For my teacher's project I sometimes need to rely on stable transfer that takes one whole night, i.e. 12 hours. And it works even though the connection throughput is ... interesting (64kB/s). Where is the problem then? If it fails, just restart again. Humanity has put tons of effort into handshaking protocols that make data transfer immensely forgivable. Never mind, good you brought up the issue, so thanks for your detailed and interesting links. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm open to discussion, perhaps I misunderstood the problem.

Thank you. Yes the question was missing an "r" at "you". The ox cart really looks amazing. Okay. So that's the import. Anyone tried the official way to get 3DS to blender 2.62 including animations? It doesn't help finally if I don't try the pipeline myself. Have to add it to my growing list ...

You are right, we must not lose the overview. As it stands for me my starting points for the purely additive features (like the HybridAI) are clear and can be developed independently. The boarding of the Collosseum or ships needs to first have the 1x1 resolution pathfinder that Philip already implemented in his mega-patch or what it was called to be brought into the game somehow. Especially for balancing your advice is very valuable. Thank you. Perhaps there is a program, that may be able to plot such dependencies and interactions (gameplay, stats, ..).. A dynamic tree ... like here? Something interactive and dynamic would be super ... @ships: Good idea nevertheless ... have to tackle it one by one .. how exactly it might be done depends on if and what we change in the C++ base. (at least for seasons we have to change it, I could identify the files for where the code goes to make the units update their textures, .. e.g. putting on light when night falls, putting more and more snow textures on the ground depending on how long it is is already winter, slowing down the units. I doubt that realtime snow falling from the sky will be possible as seen by computing power, so the only chance is to put an overlay animation over the whole camera lens if this works.) And yet another idea for our mess of ideas. Though I still like your ideas ...

AgentX, you are becoming our JavaScript mastermind. Still I would love to see the 1x1 pathfinder come that Philip worked on.

haha, correct. it's good we have him around ... his logos are famous. Okay, to be clear on the units: Max -> inch (imperial)Maya -> inch (imperial)Pyrogenesis -> inch (imperial)Blender -> m (meter)Thus to get the correct units from blender to game engine, we need to work/model in blender in inches (2.54cm) or at least export as such. Can this explain you inches, Stan? Anyone sees errors? it's getting dark too early ... empty-problem: write a script to assign new empties to the parent bones ... or convert those empty-after-import-becoming-bones into empties automatically (any unique naming scheme/id?). The alternative is to ask blender's GaiaClary to fix broken empties, I guess this will be comparably easy ... if we consider the screwed animations. Finally we have two bug reports: broken empty-parented-to-bone-COLLADA-import.broken animation after import?? or has this changed and now it's export that makes trouble again? So SMD importer is not working too? Results worse than with newest COLLADA it seems if it weren't for the missing empties/prop-points?

Luckily I have already some animating experience ... it's rather basic and nothing near what our artists have done and are doing here in 0A.D. And finally we plan on new features that finally might be adopted by 0 A.D. Essentially this is the main goal. Of course it's always better to start as a side project and push it to perfection and then ask for inclusion than the other way round. (that's why we set up the Council efforts .. to help in the main project, bundling our strengths and raising our motivation).

Of course. I only mean the files going there, not the conversation. It's easy to keep the files there up to date (even with revisioning system). Whereas one will not that easily go back to old posts only to update the attachment. Edit: Files that are or might be common to all mod packs (e.g. my HybridAI, a flower that was there in roman and viking times, a whale, ..).Files that we don't know where to put in (that might have a target, might be special and fit in a separate mod-pack repository but this not yet exists. Hence this file first goes into generic. Later it may be moved.).Any ideas for further usage? any common, generic, default things.Supporting files (like .blend) could also into a separate development repository for saving bandwidth for the mod downloads. It would essentially be a share repository for artists, devs, ... Shall we call it share or development?

I feel tempted to try it myself. The problem is I have three heavy programs launched since 4 days. If I now start blender ... okay convinced, I will try it. Shouldn't we better place it in our 0AD CoM repository? We could open a repository like 'generic' where all files go we don't know where to put in. May also be called default or common. I will also create a repository for my AI works now .. or wait, better after my thesis. Ha, why not use generic repository for the HybridAI too? (have tried to keep up the directory structure of 0AD in the generic repository)

At least this is a hope. I think we never got the rig playing correctly in blender before ... They should be empties, each parented to a bone, now the empties are gone, right? (important for the planned bug report, essentially I think the removal of empties can be fixed very quickly by Gaia, could you attach your files please) Edit: You also used the SMD export-import way here? Do you mean the trader's cart? Have grepped the complete repo, no ox_cart found.

Ah okay, I think the factor is not multiplied but instead divided by in the import process of COLLADA. Thus the parameter specifies which scale the .dae content has in relation to SI units (meters)! So to get meter, the COLLADA content has to be divided by that number .0254 before each calculation (that requires SI units). I wonder what the centimeters is for, it looks optional as it can be derived from meter="0.0254". And really strange that is does not read inches. But well as it's just a name it seems not too important. And centimeters is in the same magnitude. But anyway if it is ignored by our engine the scale of your objects in blender simply mean that what you get is what you export. It could be problematic only if you force blender to use this unit tag to scale the COLLADA objects according to this parameter. On export the object is stored and its unit it put into this unit tag. So if pyrogenesis ignores it, it probably treats it as meters. So the pyrogenesis essentially does not use meter but .0254 as this is the scale you had to use in blender. Can this be confirmed by anyone? Or does pyrogenesis assume all models are in inches and applies a hardcoded scalefactor? Hence the need to export in blender with those units? Or the blender units are different. However. If you state it works when modelling in inches (1unit = 1inch = 2.54cm) then it's fine.

Thanks, I will wait, there is no rush. You need it in inches ... to make it work? In blender, 3DSMax or in the game engine? The tag as it is currently takes your units as inches and transfers them to meters. If the tag is ignored by pyrogenesis, this means you have it in the engine as inches (because the scale conversion from inch to meter is ignored like you quoted).

I'm still open to include it into the main game. It would be brilliant indeed. Perhaps we go that route as then the cross-platform comes for free. Thanks for wx proposal. Why not, is it platform-dependent? We have to look into where in the pyrogenesis engine this mod-resolver could go ...

*bump* Sorry for my revisioning of the previous post. There still was ambiguity I had to fix. Also the conflict: key I think, we don't need. Simply overwriting like the pyrogenesis engine does with mods/<mod>/ contents that overwrite mods/public/ contents is pretty pretty. So we have hammered out a nice base. Any input still welcome and thanks sander and all our councillors.

You are right. We need the files in the highest level mod folder. We could also use one (1) list instead of a whole set of files but probably that's a bad choice? then we could have a mods.xml|json. If we give each file its own name then I would drop the key ModName or the source: . One of those could be put into the filename then. e.g. <ModName>.jsonoder <source|url>.jsonThe URL would be useful as this is unique, so no conflict.We could create a from where mods get registered in a list. We can adopt your great idea for this list to be in JSON format. At first I wanted to have a list that represents the filestructure <0ad-install-dir>/binaries/data/ mods/mods.json|xml //<- list of all mods available online just like proposed by Sander.mods/Roman_Republic/simulation/ai/hybrid/...mods/generic/<category:art,gui,...>/<subcategory>/...mods/public/art/......but that's nonsense at least for the list mods.xml|json.It became apparant that it has to be clear to us that the internal representation to deactivate an already existing, i.e. downloaded mod and the online available mod list are two different things. For the deactivation thing the list may look like that and the filesystem is already this list! So no list in form of a file needed at all. The cool thing with the existing/installed/downloaded mods is that the submods within a modpack could be resolved on the fly and thus de/activate all at once. But we need not to care for this list (this list actually is no list but all .json files within mods/ folder), only for the mods-available-for-download list. At startup we would read this list from the mods/mods.json|xml file. Then we resolve the dependencies following a UNIX package manager algorithm. (only if we really need cross dependency that is aware of versions for models et alia at all! For 0AD/the engine the version dependency of course is needed, but that's trivial compared to mod version dependency.) Few questions this time: Can we have the generic folder? It could also be called default. Just for those mods that don't rely on any package. e.g. I could put in my Hybrid mod there. Or our campaigning Mod/extension.Is it ensured that AIs from a mod-folder are loaded even if they are spread out wildly. E.g. one being within mods/generic/simulation/ai/ and the other within mods/public/simulation/ai? So will show up all of those or not?A colleague meant, I should use a C program, at first I thought of shell/batch but we determined that's not cross-platform enough, so we either use Java or C. I'd like to use C, best would be to integrate it into the Pyrogenesis startup, but I really don't like those patching issues, so want to keep it as a preprocessor first. That of course does not allow for available mods to be removed once the 0AD/pyrogenesis program is started (by our own written mod resolving preprocessor).Edit: Too much ambiguity ... @stan: wow, thank you! what exactly is this taleworld, sounds interesting .. is about medieval settings?

*bump* edited important changes

cool.If I knew it better (and its internal handling), then I could say more about it. You mentioned it decides the theme on load. That's interesting for the theming. I would prefer much more to derive the mod names directly from the folders. There is no reason to introduce yet another file. Categories like standalone: functionality: theme: can still be done by prepending to the mod name. Hiding a mod can be done via starting the folder name via . or #.The icon can be named like: <modname>.png|ico|jpg|svg|gifThe overriding and put into folder concept is good.To solve the dependency issue we need a resolver for that. Then of course we needed a configuration file anyway for reading in dependency. We could call this mod.xmlBut this makes it messy to resolve doubles as the file first had to be read while the folders itself already prevents doubles (as there can't be equal named folders). But perhaps we should allow for identically named mods?The question is whether to set up a mod directory/folder somewhere highlevel within 0AD folder structure. e.g. data/mod/. Or if it's better to simply add mods via putting them into the current folders. This of course would be a requirement for AI mods and also it would simplify things a lot as the program has not to read in all those mods from the mod folder but it's important to mark those models/actor files that are mods like infantry/<mod_pack>:citizen_soldier_...xml so that we can keep track ofwhich mod belongs to which mod pack if we'd choose to remove one on the fly. Oh wait, the last one is superfluous luckily as we can solve it all with a preprocessor: instead of launching 0AD directly we introduce ashell/batch script that is aware of the location of the 0A.D. files and has write permissionthat performs: show mod list of all available mods (grouped in mod pack categories, e.g. Aristeia, 1000 A.D.), (resolve dependencies in real time after checking a mod using JavaScript)download of mods that have been selected into /tmp folder,extract it into the correct folder within the 0 A.D. file structure.start the game. Et voilà.The good news is that I could and just decided to write such a script for us (at least for linux) ..Then we only have to change our repository structure in one repository that contains all mods, don't you think? Or we allow importing other mods from other repositories! Ha, that's it!! In the mod.xml we also specify common units that shall be included. Or viking units... or units from the Rise of the East or of the Pirate mod. Wow, I think that's the solution. So we can keep it all in separate repositories - it's good thing!! Depending on the mod pack (e.g. 1000 A.D., 1000 B.C.) another variant of our hybrid AI might well be chosen and downloaded by the script. Hence we can only win by strictly dividing functionality (e.g. a campaigning engine) and the relevant mod content, e.g. viking campaigns, roman campaigns, ... Finally we only want Roman mods in the Roman Republic repo, e.g. additional custom roman units (like standardbearers), ... Roman campaigning content files, ... The importing via xml, e.g. <import> <mod-pack>Roman_Republic</mod-pack> <!-- OR --> <mod>1000AD/path/to/mod_folder_or_file/<mod></import>allows us to keep it all separate - no redundancy! The script will take care of downloading the imports and resolving additional dependencies!And the campaigning and AI mod then go into a separate one too. That unfortunately is in conflict with the tight integration of Roman Republic Mod and my Hybrid AI. Perhaps I have to think of an AI setup file (yet another configuration file ). There could set names for the leadership, government form, the council hierarchies, the available commands (e.g. naval raids only for viking) and the decision tree that belongs to this command. Also deactivating Hybrid AI build-in 'common' commands like defensive and offensive command, subduing command, rebellion command, ... could be allowed in the config file. That would even allow to use the AI with other themes, cultures, units, political system and even make features like available decisions for the decision trees moddable. I think that's a breakthrough!! What do you think?

Thanks for answering. Could anyone propose a .dae file that I could send the main COLLADA dev of blender to check why it is screwed up? Also a video of how it should look like correctly would be cool. For COLLADA the leaf bones length will never be imported correctly. That's because the system is different, blender uses bones with start and end while COLLADA stores each 'bone' as a point/node. So the length of the last bone may never be derived properly. (after Gaia Clary, the one and only that fixed all those COLLADA issues during the last year!) The right tag is what the exporter in 3DSMax has set. And that's fine if it's z-up as you and Enrique pointed out. The first tag is the scale factor to get SI units from the derived one. e.g. in your example: <unit meter="0.025400" name="centimeter"></unit>1 inch = 2.54 cm = .0254 m That's why there is the factor. I think it's for the case that the importing tools isn't aware of how to achieve SI units. So this is the conversion factor applied to each dimension in the COLLADA file prior to any calculation. (As each calculation needs SI units.)

I agree we need either: Mod environment ingame where dependencies are resolved.or:Each independent (sub)Mod in its own repo, then join via a shell/batch script.or:Each Mod in its own folder (as it is currently),live with redundancy,and not care for ever using more than mod at a time.Otherwise try to keep up compatibility by merging conflicting mods when added to the simulation/..<mod-folder>.(this is a manual process)I'd opt for keeping it modular, then having an ingame listing of available mods. If one is enabled, dependencies should be resolved. Versions may be neglected in the dependency list if we simply keep all mods up to the most recent versions. Unfortunately we will have dependencies if e.g. a GUI mod depends on another mod that adds functionality to the buttons. Perhaps we find a way to avoid this dependence by keeping GUI and functional changes/mods that interact in one module. Dropping the version paramter makes the creation of the resolver much easier and reliefs us of maintaining bunches of old versions.

Probably you have already tried that: (conversation as of 15th ..16th March 2013) => Have to check with 4 versions:one before NGons were introduced (<2.63 is fine),2.63a,2.66,2.69 (daily build)I have read through this topic and it made me feel sick how this is hampering the art department - and how much effort already went into this. So now we need to really fix it!We have a last chance with the SMD Milkshape Max->Blender method. Probably we have to try with both the blender FBX importer of that time (2012) and the current one.As a last ressort I will hack that COLLADA importer for us (e.g. fix the y-up to z-up problem via an option to force transfer from y-up to z-up on import). The messed up scale of bones I am much more worried about as it's difficult to fix automatically unless we find a pattern (difference .dae to within blender)? Any artist can tell me if it's only a visual problem or if the messed scale affects the DEFORM?Perhaps this can be fixed by forcing the blender COLLADA importer to use the units from the .dae file? (there must be an option)Edit: v2.69 gets an animation rotation bugfix that at least occurred for animations exported to .dae from blender <2.69. So it's not directly our problem, but good to be aware of! Edit: Saw that GaiaClary is still active in development. I'm pretty sure if we file a bug report now with the new system our problems will be solved. Just see here as an example of 4th of february where they fixed a COLLADA issue: https://developer.blender.org/T38482. (Ton, chief of blender has declared COLLADA and with it compatibility to other 3D software a priority somewhen. I think it will get fixed if anybody knowledged enough may put together the relevant data.) Edit: Dec 2013: FBX Importer fails to import binary FBX (animation) out of 3DS MAX <- perhaps this opens the 3DSMax -> FBX -> Blender direct way?

Then this is relevant here. If there is no such options written by the old COLLADA exporter of Max, then that's our problem. We could change the blender importer to transform from y-up to z-up or we add these tags in each COLLADA file.