While at Siggraph, I had the pleasure of meeting the Khronos Group member and Blender artist Dominic Agoro-Ombaka (he was at the Khronos group booth). During a Collada Birds of a Feather meeting he discovered something with the Collada 1.4 importer that comes packaged with Blender 2.42a.
Using the Collada import script, a script error occurred when he imported into Blender a Collada file created from Maya that contained materials. The version currently packaged in Blender is version 0.2.65. Updating not only the script but the bpymodules to version 0.3.89 resolved the issue. You can find the updated scripts at the Illusoft Collada site. If you are using the script often, please check the Illusoft site often for updates since it is still a developing plugin.
After Siggraph I realized how important Collada is for people switching to Blender or using Blender in their production pipeline with other programs. So if you are using Blender and Collada make sure to support the Blender Collada plugin with bug reporting, donations, or animations for the upcoming animation support!
