To create a 3D model and export it to a Collada .dae file, you can do this if you use any of the following 3D authoring tools: Blender, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3dsMax, The Foundry Modo, Maxon Cinema 4D, SideFX Houdini, etc. .d. The easiest way is to use the nonprofit student version of Autodesk Maya 2018. It's free. You can download it from HERE .
There are countless examples on YouTube how to model and dodge the map in Maya software. Have a look at this example of Maya UV mapping . So, when your 3D model (and its UV texture) is ready for use, you can export it to one of four formats supported by SceneKit:
- animated collage
DAE - animated Pixar
USDZ (supported on iOS 12 and above) - single-frame Sony
Alembic - single-frame wavefront
OBJ
In Maya Export Type your 3D geometry should have DAE_FBX export :
The texture for your model (square UV display 1K, 2K, 4K, etc.) you can export as a JPEG or PNG file. It might look like this:
You must assign this UV-square texture to the Diffuse slot of the properties in the Lighting Model (shader) in Show the Material Inspector.
And here is the Swift 4.1 code if you want to do this programmatically:
let scene = SCNScene(named: "art.scnassets/mushroom.scn")! let mushroom = scene.rootNode.childNode(withName: "mushroom", recursively: true)! let mushroomMaterial = SCNMaterial() mushroomMaterial.diffuse.contents = UIImage(named: "mushroom.png")
PS Work with the Pixar USD file format :
If you have a .usda model instead of .usdz for your 3D scene, you can convert .usda using the command line method in Terminal:
xcrun usdz_convertor file.usda file.usdz
The usdz_convertor method is only available with Xcode 10 installed.