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Autodesk FBX exporter in Blender 2.45

19
By on 3D News

fbx_example.jpgBlender 2.45 will have an updated Autodesk FBX exporter to support exporting
character animations.

FBX is an advanced format, and some users might not be aware that the exporter already exported blenders multiple UV and color layers as well as lights, and camera data.

Reports are that this works with Maya, Motion-Builder, Cinema4D and Unity3d.

We hope that this will help Blenders presence in the game industry and as a tool for DCC (digital content creation).

To help out, you can download the script and test - It will run with Blender 2.45rc1 just replace your existing export_fbx.py file. Thanks also to Unity3D who are funding development of this exporter.

Article submitted by Campbell Barton

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

19 Comments

  1. harkyman on

    This is a great move, although I know that it wasn't fun for Campbell Barton to code this. FBX support is very important, as it was one of the more asked-about things at SIGGRAPH this year. "Those are cool tools, but can I export character animation through FBX?" Hearing "No" seemed to be a deal breaker, but now we can say Yes!

    Thanks Campbell!

    Reply
  2. Dr. D on

    Hey, is 2.45 supposed to support .dds textures? I had an svn build earlier that did, but the 2.45RC1 doesn't handle them. Anybody know if that feature got removed or pushed back or something? It didn't seem to me that it had any bugs.
    Maybe it was just added too late to get into 2.45?

    Reply
  6. mfoxdogg on

    Jacob Picart, Importing will require the use of the FBX SDK which is not covered by GPL so we have to tread very carfully

    Dr. D, DDS support is still in the trunk of blender but it is a new feature and 2.45 is strictly bugfixes only, except for pyscripts ofcourse

    Great work Cambel btw, they still don't work well in endorphine

    Reply
  7. Jacob Picart on

    mfoxdogg, thanks for the reply (makes sense).

    Does anyone know of any other tools that will convert FBX to COLLADA or OBJ? Come to think of it, will an OBJ retain textures, animations keyframes, etc? Sorry, sort of a newbie question. Thanks in advanced!

    Reply
  12. elite2864 on

    @Ideasman42:
    Since roundabout 3 years Blender-Users are searching for an FBX-Importer.
    I think a filter with import/export-capabilities make sense.
    Especially for FBX because most parameters - even deformation-data - could be handled.

    With MAYA you can import any data included in an FBX-File (or other format) from any other application.
    Finally there are workflows between different 3D-apps excluded Blender!

    Don't make Blender to a isolated application!!

    P.S.: the old exporter isn't working well. The actual obj-exporter not too!! It often triangulates files!

    Reply
  13. oin on

    My vote here for an FBX importer, too. :)

    Would rock for porting many full assets, or isolated game characters, etc, from Max/Maya to Blender :) :) I know of several game comunities that would make deep use of it.

    Reply
  15. Ideasman42 (Campbell Barton) on

    We can get around licenses (a number of ways) etc so its not impossible to write a (legal) FBX importer.

    The problem is that its a lot of work, probably more work then writing the importer was and my guess is that it would take me 3-5 weeks full time to finish it.

    So its not really about 'wanting' or 'votes', its just that some guy must devote a fair chunk of time to getting it done.

    along with that, writing importers and exporters isnt all that fun. compared to say - writing modifiers in C or new tools.
    So this might be a good candidate for 'Google Summer of Code', or a code bounty.

    On the other hand, If anyones interested in writing this importer Ill gladly help them. that includes GSOC or if their getting a bounty.

    How about somebody starts one here!
    http://www.opensourcexperts.com/bountylist.html

    PS.
    @George - 2.45rc2 is being built as we speak, this has the latest fbx exporter included.

    Reply
  16. oin on

    oops, sorry. That's one of the disadvantages of not being a programmer myself, sometimes don't realize the hard work behind things....Sorry :s

    Reply

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