Content Authoring using Infinity Professional

Infinity Professional works in conjunction with content authoring tools to enable the delivery of 3D website content. It is currently compatible with Autodesk's 3D Studio Max, version 6 or later. Additional content authoring packages will be supported in future, subject to the successful introduction of this technology.

Infinity Professional ships with a comprehensive tutorial that demonstrates the 3D website content creation workflow using 3D Studio Max.

The eXtensible Scene Graph (XSG) File Format

Advance Software's Infinity Technology introduces a new XML based file format called XSG (eXtendible Scene Graph) which is used to describe 3D website content in an equivalent manner to how HTML files define web page content.

Editing XSG Files

XSG files can be opened for inspection and / or modification, just like HTML files. However, unlike HTML, XSG files are stored in a compact binary form to enable them to be transmitted efficiently over a network.

To edit XSG files you must first unpack them to a standard text file, make your changes, then pack the file back into binary format. This can be accomplished using the editxsg script that ships with Infinity. XSG files can be opened from Windows Explorer or the command line.

Using Windows Explorer

Right click on the xsg file you wish to edit / inspect then select Open With -> editxsg

By default, the Infinity installer associates xsg files with the browser so they are opened as content (rather than as source) by Windows Explorer.

From The Command Line

If you wish to open an xsg file called index.xsg in the directory shown, simply type 'editxsg index' as shown below.

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Infinity\Welcome> editxsg index

Example Content

1. Infinity Professional installs some example content to C:\Infinity

2. Some local XSG files are installed in the following directory : [Win]\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Infinity

3. After visiting 3D websites online, the XSG files used to describe them are kept in the browser cache, so you can inspect any you are interesting in from there.

Trouble Shooting

Infinity Professional should automatically configure itself to work with whatever version of 3dsmax you are using. If you get a configuration error when starting 3dsmax after installing Infinity Professional, this could be because our installer has selected the wrong version of our plugin. This may happen if you have multiple versions of 3dsmax installed. If this occurs, open the plugin.ini file in your 3dsmax install directory and modify the Infinity entry to select the correct plugin version.

Alternative 3D Web File Formats

We consider the XSG format to be better suited to 3D website development and delivery than competing alternatives such as COLLADA and the W3C's proposed X3D format because 3D website designers need a content format that is delivered efficiently and is easy to understand and work with.