Supported OpenFlight Beads
 
 
 

The following table provides comparisons between OpenFlight and Maya.

OpenFlight Beads Maya equivalent/comment
Control Records  
Instance Definition Instanced geometry
Instance Reference Instance group node
POP Changes move up to the previous parent in the DAG
PUSH Creates a child under the current parent
Unsupported Control Records
Extension  
POP Subface See PUSH Subface
PUSH Subface Maya cannot support hierarchy on co-planer surfaces. Instead the next face to be created is offset by 1 mm in the direction of the normal.
Pop Attribute Reserved for MultiGen
Push Attribute Reserved for MultiGen
Primary Records
Degree-of-Freedom Record Maya transforms are used to represent DOF’s. See OpenFlight workflow considerations for more information.
EXTERNAL REFERENCE File reference to another OpenFlight database.
FACE Shape node for a face. Faces are part of a polymesh within Maya.
GROUP Group transform node.
HEADER Header record for an OpenFlight file. Sets orientation, field of view, etc. Sets the appropriate orientation and UI units.
Level-of-Detail Level of detail group node.
Light Source A Light.
Light Point A special node type associated with the OpenFlight translator. See When using Light Points” for more details.
OBJECT Transform node.
SWITCH A special node type associated with the OpenFlight translator. See “Switch Nodes” under “Work Flow Considerations” for more details.
Unsupported Primary Records
Binary Separating Plane Allows for the modeling of databases without Z information
Curve B-spline, Cardinal, also known as Catmull-Rom, and Bezier.
CAT Continuously Adaptive Terrain Skin. A triangle mesh for high fidelity, real-time viewing.
Clip Region  
Extension Node User defined node information.
MESH Poly mesh. (This is not widely supported and may not be available in the first release)
Morph Vertex List Works in conjunction with LOD node to morph geometry depending on the distance from the camera.
Road Segment  
Road Construction  
Road Path  
Sound Sound emitter position
Text  
Ancillary Records  
Continuation Not a node but simply a continuation of a vertex list. Records are limited to 64K in size.
LONG ID A node name greater than 7 characters to be applied to the previously read node. Maya node names do not have this restriction so the name is applied directly to the node.
REPLICATE Multiple instances of the current transform node.
TRANSFORMATION MATRIX Transform matrix to be applied to the current transform node.
Unsupported Ancillary Records
Bounding Volume  
CAT Data Header  
CAT Data Key  
CAT Data Face  
Extension Attribute 3rd party support.
Local Vertex Pool  
MESH PRIMITIVE  
MultiTexture Allows support for up to 8 textures per vertex (May not be in first release).
Road Zone (Pointer to a file that contains grid elevation data)
UV List Follows Vertex List and contains texture layer information.
Vector (Only used for light point faces).
Palette Records
Color Palette A collection of color entries. Maya does not use a color palette. Each vertex holds the corresponding RGB color.
LIGHT PALETTE Lights are DAG node entries in Maya.
MATERIAL PALETTE Material become Shaders within Maya. See Texture Palette
TEXTURE PALETTE Textures are applied to shaders within Maya. Shaders have an associated shading group that all nodes using this texture are connected to.
Eyepoint and Trackplane Palette Implemented as Cameras in Maya. (See Known Issues.)
Light Source Palette  
VERTEX PALETTE Vertices are part of a polymesh in Maya.
VERTEX LIST See Vertex Palette.
Vertex Palette Header Followed by vertex data.
Vertex with Color Polymesh vertex data.
Vertex with Color and Normal Polymesh vertex data.
Vertex with Color, Normal and UV Polymesh vertex data.
Vertex with Normal and UV Polymesh vertex data.
Unsupported Palette Records
Key Table  
Linkage Palette  
Line Style Palette Maya has only 1 line style.
Name Table  
Sound Palette  
Texture Mapping