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 | |