Can Collada (dae) be used as content?

Question

Can the Collada (dae) file format be used for content, or is it strictly for reciprocity between 3D studios, etc? For example, I create a XNA game, could I create a loader and load it in for usage in my game? Would it be wise and legal to do this? Or can I only use it to transfer between Maya and 3D Max?

Answer 1

Collada is a perfectly acceptable format to use with XNA. Benjamin Nitschke has created an excellent tutorial on loading a Skinned Collada model with all of the necessary loader classes etc. on his website. The source code is at the end of the article along with some other useful links.

Answer 2

You can definitely use it as the main format for your game.

Many systems support directly loading COLLADA:

• Second Life Mesh
• Ogre
• GLGE
• three.js

and many more.

If you're using C#, there is a C# Collada library.