Which nodes of the Collada .DAE are most relevant for game object & character use?

Question

I was looking to choose an intermediary format that can get from 3D modeling software to my internally used format. Collada .DAE seems to be good as it can export animation too and it's XML. Kind of bloated but easy to parse.

Before being a wannabe game developer, my expertise is in reusable code writing, libraries, APIs and such. So my first impulse was to go an implement a FULL parser of the Collada format given the fact that I'm not 100% what I need or will need to extract from it.

As it seems Collada is trying to be everything and the kitchen sink, there's definitely stuff in there I don't think I need to be concerned about. So, sanity prevailed and decided to come here and ask the experienced people what are the important nodes for game characters and objects in the .DAE file? Or is there another format considered friendlier by game devs that can export animations too?

I've figured out the following are important:

• geometries (mesh + triangles)
• materials + images
• animations + controllers
• visual scenes + scene

What else am I missing from the top-level node list? I don't think /lights are important as I deal with that in code. I just need to import meshes + textures + animations. At least for now, as I'm just starting out in D3D programming.

For a non-animated object I can get away with a .OBJ file but for a character with animation, I really don't think .OBJ supports them.

So the question is: Which DAE nodes are relevant to game objects and animated characters?... and if someone experienced consuming this format could provide a few words describing them, in a more game-friendly way then that specification... would be great! Or should I use another intermediary format but .DAE?

PS: As I'm in a learning frenzy right now, I'm not interested to use external tools. I will write my own parser, exporter, format... everything. :)

Answer 1

Collada is the way to go for exporting animations IMO. I am kinda doing the similar thing these days and I found this a little helpful.