Currently as it stands. It is painful to import files from blender to UE4 as .FBX when it comes down to skeletal data, animations, morph targets, etc.
Further more the Blender FBX exporter might very well go unsupported come 2.8
Would it be possible for Unreal to support the .Blend file format?
This certainly seems like a great thing to support if possible.
Considering that Blender has made a name for itself as one of the most used modeling programs in the indie world it might be a great idea to support their format.
Maybe even a collaboration between the groups?
My recommendation would be to try not to support any proprietary formats even if they are open source. I do think open source is the way to go here and a format that can be exchangeable across applications including blender is the way to go.
Here are acouple of the suggestions from the discord. I think the key thing here is that we have to realise there are like 2 million other users of the software so implementing something very specific such as .blend support only benefits a small number of people where supporting a format that most major 3d applications support (or can support without legal issues) will benefit the community at large
Even if Epic will implement glTF, Blender still doesn’t have support for it (afaik there is non official plugin, and only static meshes and textures were implemented).
True, but since glTF is open format, Blender devs will have a way less pain implementing it. From what I understand, supporting FBX is only the problem because it’s closed source format and because Autodesk deliberately screws Blender over by making small, undocumented changes to FBX with almost every new release.
I bet if UE4 suppored glTF fully, Blender devs would have already provided working add-on for it.
If we’re going by Bastien Montagne’s mailing-list thread from February, here’s his follow-up post which seems to refute the notion that Blender is dropping support for FBX:
So unless something has changed drastically since then, it looks like 2.8 will continue to support FBX. I can understand his frustrations with working on it though, and agree that it would be a good idea for UE4 to at some stage support more open formats.
Fairly sure I read recently that epic have been working with blender guys on the fbx side of things. I highly doubt blender team would drop fbx support
I still think another more portable format could be useful for people using other applications which may not support FBX, something that has better support in blender or a possible future support as its more compatible with a GPL license. I just feel as though rather than having all this frustration over a format no one has any control over it would be better to adopt something that can become a larger industry standard across all applications not just primarily Autodesk pipelines
Full Disclosure: I prefer 3dsmax and have spent a majority of my 3d modelling career using Autodesk apps