----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Originally posted by me in the online forums of the Web3D Consortium.Originally titled: Hey, I'm back for a second week!Feb 28, 2005http://www.web3d.org/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, I'm back for a second week of blogging. As it turns out, I'm rather happy to see that last week's post had 38 views.As today was a Sunday, I was at work getting the kinks out of the exporter. So much for having a weekend. I just started using the Maya API callback methods to preprocess information when building the ui tree control which will be used by the content author for setting up Web3D routing from within Maya. It was mostly straight forward stuff, except that sometimes the code ran twice when new nodes were added to the scene and returned NULL data. However, that's mostly been fixed.The routing tree control is currently written in MEL, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it tends to update slowly if there are a significantly large number of nodes in the scene. On top of that issue, it really isn't a true tree control. My hope is to find someone well versed in GTK+ gui design in order to create a true tree control. Doing so will greatly increase the speed at which this tree is updated. I posted a position openning for a GTK+ guru on SourceForge, but so far nobody has taken me up on my offer of unpaid volunteerism. :)But the SourceForge site is useful. I've had a second person contact me through the site for help with installation. This person was using Maya to export Shockwave3D content, but had been disappointed with Macromedia's support for the technology.On to other news, the Alias contacted me last week for the purpose of asking me to submit a course proposal for the 2005 Maya API Conference to be held in Santa Barbara this June. I was kind of shocked to get the message. Of course, it was a form letter, but the RawKee project isn't even officially part of Alias' Conductors Program (their plug-in development program). I intend to apply to be a participant in Conductors program, but the NDSU Office of Research Administration insists on thoroughly going over the contract before I submit it. I supose that's a good thing. Anyway I was hesitant at first to submit an abstract for the API conference as it's a 90 minute talk. I think the longest talk I've ever given has been 45 min.I really want to attend the conference in order to better learn the Maya API, but with a $200/night hotel bill, airfare, and $1800 conference registration fee I can't aford it. So I decided to submit something anyway as Alias pays for all of it if the company selects you to present.Of course, I was still petrified of talking for 90 minutes so I asked to Tony Parisi if he would consider co-presenting with me. We've been attempting to work out the details of using the FLUX viewer as RawKee's content previewing mechanism within Maya. Much in the same maner that the user can preview content with Maya's Shockwave3D exporter or use CosmoPlayer in conjunction with CosmoWorlds. Tony agreed.So last Friday I actually submitted the ATL/Media Machines abstract to Alias with about an hour to spare before the deadline. Alias contacted me this past Monday stating that the abstract could be an interesting topic for the conference, but they wanted to be sure that our talk would focus on the Maya API and not X3D. I was asked to write up a clarification document. So I did, and now I'm waiting to hear back from them. I expect I'll hear something on it Monday or Tuesday.On Thursday, I heard from the Alias Research Donation Program that it would renew our yearly donation request. On top of the usual Maya products, I had also asked that we be given a couple of licenses of MotionBuilder. That part of it hasn't been approved... yet. I can imagine some really awsome X3D H-Anim content if I can get the RawKee/Maya/MotionBuilder pipeline worked out. But Alias' continued ARDP support allows for RawKee plug-in development to continue.So what's in store for RawKee this week? Well, I'm hoping to have MutliTexture/Bump Map/Light Map/Shaddow map export completed by the end of this week and a 0.3 alpha version released over the upcoming weekend. Check back next Sunday night to see if I actually accomplished that goal.Later,Aaron