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FBX Export?

flintanvil_595ee848d1flintanvil_595ee848d1 Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in Hexagon Discussion

Does anyone know if an FBX export is in our future?

It's becoming the format for many things including most modern game engines. Would love to use Hexagon in my workflow for development.

K

Comments

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    why would you need FBX from a modelling app?

  • flintanvil_595ee848d1flintanvil_595ee848d1 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    It's the most supported format currently in use across all platforms and applications...that might be a reason dontcha think...

    It's the norm now to support it... It's a native import/export format for Maya, Max, motion builder, Unreal, Unity, NeoAxis, Leadwerks and about any other game engine and modelling application over the past 2-3 years.

    Why would you not need it?

    As it stands now If I want to use Hexagon in my development pipeline I'll still need something else to convert OBJ (dated format) to FBX to be able to use the assets in my projects.

    It boggles my mind why a modern modelling app does not have it... unless of course all you do are renders and screen grabs and nothing else.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    because they're geometries only. As I understood it, FBX is designed to support geometries rigged for animation. Why bother with FBX when all you're dealing with is polygons?

  • flintanvil_595ee848d1flintanvil_595ee848d1 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    FBX is indeed a fully featured file format including rigging and animation. It also has some of the best support of any format for UV's and materials and it's very efficient regarding size and compression, it's very stable as well. Simply because an application does not have animation should not discount it from the current standards in import and export formats.

    I'm an Environment artist by profession, all I really do is static mesh and props, I simply would like to use Hexagon in a project highlighting what can be done on a budget and it would be nice not to have to use Blender as an exporter middle ware in my pipeline :D

    K

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    you could always run it through DAZ Studio's FBX exporter... I still fail to understand why FBX is required for Geometries when just about everybody supports OBJ...

  • flintanvil_595ee848d1flintanvil_595ee848d1 Posts: 0
    edited March 2013

    OBJ is not a common format anymore for most current game engines. You need to have a single format for game development and these days that's FBX.

    The rule with development pipelines is keep it as simple as possible. Without FBX it means I'll need to use other software in between modelling and getting the asset into Game, it means there are more ways something can get broke or go missing it also means I'll have several versions of an asset instead of just the master and game ready version, I'll now need an intermediate format for every asset of the project, that could run into 1000's of more files to track in source control and more chance of something going wrong :)

    It would be nice to have FBX :D

    K

    Post edited by flintanvil_595ee848d1 on
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Thank you for explaining that. So basically what your'e saying is that the industry demands FBX and therefore that is what is used? I genuinely was curious.

    Hex has an issue that bothers me a bit, however. It does not subdivide meshes in the same way I've seen other apps do... so that might also be a barrier to you. I don't know how common subivided surfaces are in the Game industry...

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    You could always use the Bridge to DS, and export it there. with very little extra work.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    That's true, actually. The bridge works exceedingly well... send to DAZ Studio, then File:Export... it's a single extra step that's virtually painless. AND: you can check it before you export with a render :)

  • 3dtpi3dtpi Posts: 1
    edited December 1969

    well FBX supports not only polygons..but also the "skeleton" riged model the animation including multiple "takes" and scene info like camera,lights and textures linked. You can open FBX files via quicktimeviewer and other apps(in/out of motion builder 3dsmax and maya). preview your character animated. So simply stating that it is a industry standard is understatement..because yes if your just looking into exporting importing the model.. then obj is perfectly fine. But if you make a clothed character in an app like DAZ and want to export it to say motionbuilder and apply mocap data to it..(without having to rebuild a joint skeleton and reweight the vertices to it) then you want FBX

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