Well this was bound to happen eventually.
I think it’s a good thing(even though it’s us who’ll suffer through this).
It’s about time for Epic to either make their own fbx plugin(if that’s even possible) for blender or to adapt new file formats.
They really need to get outside the autodesk sphere of influence. It’s hurting them. And what has autodesk done? Stingray
…Not that I find Stingray good or anything, lol or even care about it.
It’s the part that confuses me the most though. Epic especially depends on fbx more so than Unity… but both really depend on autodesk for fbx.
And this year, autodesk has announced themselves as one of their competitors…
I really don’t understand why they would not be right now doing everything they can to loosen up that dependence.
I mean if you’re really going to promote yourself as an indie/hobbyist software, shouldn’t you want to have software like Blender working with yours? and if Blender can’t on it’s own… Wouldn’t you either invest in it(or maybe create your own plugins like they do for maya, if that’s even possible) so that you keep that enormous advantage. There is no other free software like Blender(yet) and especially not with so many years of development.
Bastien and ‘team’(Mainly Bastien) already have the weight of the world on them for FBX support… all the responsibility is on them… and then add to the fact that so many keep bashing on Blender as if it’s owed to them and as if there’s some mega-team who are magically gonna ‘get this done’… They can only reverse-engineer* something like ‘FBX’ for so long anyways… especially with so little funding.
Then this:
What’s $10k in programming and software development? It’s peanuts.
Look, it was generous of Epic to give them money but that was 2 years ago and literally peanuts(especially for a file format which requires continuous maintenance).
They have the money and they’ve been spending it on way riskier investments like Dev. grant applicants which are getting way more than that and sometimes just for showing off or starting a project that doesn’t exist yet or is just videos and images(not bashing ok , **love **the dev grants, just comparing investment decisions).
But when it comes to proven software that could be practically advantageous to the actual product(the game engines themselves) they give peanuts… it’s an open source software*[edit] company driven by either sheer voluntary will or voluntary funding… The fact the Blender team has been keeping up with this for so long just shows how loveable they are.
In the end I go where my workflow permits me. And if Unreal Engine doesn’t fit in there anymore well that’s it.
I would prefer it not to be, because I love this engine but c’est la vie.
We’ll see what happens. For now we’re still ok.
Like Bastien said in the letter things will still be supported for a while, but seeing all the trouble already present with blenderFBX and UE4 …well that might be sooner than I’d like.
I really hope Epic sees the advantage that Blender gives them and find a way to make things work.
Maybe they’ll adapt the new file formats Bastien was talking about. Who knows, just hope they realize that it won’t be handed to them.
It’s something that they’ll have to pursue on their own.