============================================

SAM File Format Plug-In - v0.1 (August,2007)
for Alias Maya 7 (or greater)

--------------------------------------------
Written by T. Philipp
tphilipp@potion-studios.com
www.potion-studios.com


Disclaimer:
-----------
This plugin is freeware - by means the user is allowed to
copy this plugin freely, but is not allowed to sell it or
use it for his own profit.
Use this plug-in at your own risk. I am not responsible
for any hardware or software damage caused by this
software.


About the plugin:
-----------------
This is a plug-in module to be used with Alias Maya 7 (or
greater).
The *.sam file format is a simple ASCII file format for
demonstration purpose - hence the file extension standing
for "Sample ASCII Model". Although it was not designed to be
used in production, I hope it will be of use to someone.

SAM files store mesh-based model data and skeleton data, as
well as the names of applied materials. The format itself
should be pretty self explanatory by simply looking at it.
Please note that some specific model setups might pose
problems during export (none that I'm currently aware of,
though). Please send in bug reports, etc...

Along with the exporter comes a SAM importer. However, since
SAM files only store a specific subset of the original scene,
the result after importing will most likely differ from the
latter. Note that the importer is provided for convenience
only.

The plug-in has been tested on Maya 7. Please tell me if
it works with other versions, too.

Note that there are SAM export/import plugins for other 3d
editors, too - check the web site to find out.


About the implementation of the SAM file format:
------------------------------------------------
SAM files are basically simple ASCII files storing meshes
and bones/joints. On the bone/joint side, the format stores
the joint's unique name (if not unique in the 3D editor, it
will be made unique), the parent joint's name (or "" if it's
a root joint) and its inverse base matrix (being the inverse
of the bind pose matrix).
Stored mesh data consists of the name of the mesh, vertices,
normals, texture coordinates (with any number of coordinate
sets), names of applied materials (per polygon), number of
vertices per polygon, indices per polygon for all this data,
and skin weights.


Closing words:
--------------
If you would like me to support a specific SAM feature,
please write a mail. Feel free to contact me in order
to report bugs, to donate money, to give me some feedback
or if you are in need of a custom 3ds Max/Maya/XSI/...
plugin.


Have a nice day,
Tassilo
