I have a dae file and i used the MD5 exporter for away3d in 3dMAX 9. The character works fine but the cloth which has no bones cannot be exported. And the strange thing is:
While i played it in 3dMAX, the cloth mesh is not animated but the vertex are animated . (See the attachment picture left side). When any of the modifier (such as cloth, skin, morph…) is applied to the cloth mesh, it can be animated (See the attachment picture right side).

I am not sure about the reason that i cannot export the cloth mesh properly.
Is it my exporter’s problem? or is it my 3dMAx’s problem? I did some research online but unfortunately I am totally new to flash 3d development and not good at 3dMAX either . So i have no clue on how to solve it.

Can anyone tell me the right workflow to export this kind of cloth effect and animate it in away3d?

I’ve wrestled a bit with this myself. As yet I haven’t found the perfect recipe.
You should checkout MD2 format, which is based on vertex position rather than bones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD2_(file_format)

I found another approach, but it’s still experimental.
http://videometry.blogspot.com/2011/09/playing-havok-with-flash-11.html
http://videometry.blogspot.com/2011/09/introducing-atomizer.html

AWD2 is also worth investigation. AFAIK there’s no MAX exporter as yet, but you can take models through Blender and export. Prefab2 should also be a path to AWD2 in the near future.

I hope others will provide a tried and tested method for you, otherwise the only thing I can tell you is that it’s in the works. If you find the answer, please post :O)

Good Luck!

Thanks for the tips,theMightyAtom.
I tried MD2 with Adam Barton’s exporter. The mesh can be loaded but the texture is not ok. The debugger keeps throwing the URL error saying not finding material file.
My material is under path “assets/myzreal/character_empire_myzreal.jpg” but the error message showed:
URL: file:///C:/Users/yanwei/Adobe Flash Builder 4/LoaderMd2Test/bin-debug/assets/myzreal/S.jpg

I stepped into the program and could not figure out why my URL request had been changed from “character_empire_myzreal.jpg” to “S.jpg”. My guess is that it is due to the internal dependency within the .MD2 file while parsing. Maybe it is caused by the exporter. The ‘official’ example of LoaderMD2Test works fine for me.
I ignored the error and the program continued, the model is showing without texture. (as shown below, the left one is in away3d the right one is rendered by 3dMAX) Can anyone give me a clue?

Aha, finally i import my character with clothes into Away3d by MD2. Let me put my steps here in case someone needs this:
[1] import DEA file to 3dMAX 9 by the Collada importer
[2] Download MD2 exporter (Search Adam Barton’s exporter on google )
[3] Export your DAE to MD2
[4] Purchase (or download the Demo Version) FragMotion
[5] open your MD2 with Fragmotion
[6] Each frame is an “animation clip” show in FragMotion, you can create an empty animation and name it “all”, double click the animation name, a key frame window will pop.
[7] Select ‘Append Animations’ and select all frames. It will append all frames of your DAE file to the animation with the name “all”.
[8] then select “split Animation” and follow the instructions and name your clips with start and end frame number
[9] save and export as MD2 file
[10] use the example LoaderMD2Test to load the MD2 file, and use the
play(“ClipName”); to animate it

But I still don’t know how to set the alpha channel and multiple texture. May be some one can tell me ?

Finally i imported my angle model into away3D and got it animated! Still have a lot optimization to do because the FPS is too low. But it is my first successful demo. I should keep on studying. Thanks for the devs!