Support for FBX and more usable textures

Hi,

High on my list would be support for FBX. That way we would be able to get Geometry, textures and Cameras into a large number of other softwares. Main ones is 3ds Max and Unity. For us having the camera alignments is also incredibly useful as well as geometry and textures. If I could get all that data into 3dsmax I would be delighted!

Texturing at the moment, is accurate, but we cannot really edit the result in any sensible way, so a much better unwrap system would be just great.

Nick

Dear Nick,

I hope that your texturing question is solved with the latest release of reality capture :slight_smile: faster, out-of-core and supports custom UV maps too.

We will integrated FBX, its on the road map.

Yes!,

Just saw that and downloaded today. Will test it tomorrow and see how we go.

Nick

martinb wrote:

Dear Nick,

I hope that your texturing question is solved with the latest release of reality capture :slight_smile: faster, out-of-core and supports custom UV maps too.

We will integrated FBX, its on the road map.

Awesome news martinb!

Do you have an eta on the .fbx export feature being operational? Lots of people asking about this in the VFX field.

+1 for FBX - in my case simply because

  • FBX allows us to ship a textured model in a single file
  • FBX Review renders very well

Two questions in the mean time.

Is there a way outside the software to convert the obj + texture to an fbx? FBX Convertor doesn’t want to know about the texture as far as I can see.

Hi,

I guess the image attached to my last message is an answer - thanks.

I’ve just tried that option, and with an .obj as exported by RC it doesn’t seem to have any effect. Do you think FBX convertor should find the texture on disk? I guess so.

I tried first with a model with bmp texture (first mesh export I did, before I saw the option to change the format). I then re-exported the mesh from RC with .jpg, and tried conversion again, but still no joy.

Hamish

Hi Hamish Harvey

This has been done WITHOUT any tweaking in the FBX converter, so it should work. Have you enabled the EMBED MEDIA, too?
Where are you trying to open the FBX file?

Hi wishgranter,

I’ve just tried this again, and yes, if I

  • export obj
  • run fbx convertor
  • drop obj file onto fbx convertor
  • enable embed media
  • click convert

then I get an fbx file that, when loaded in e.g. fbx review, shows no texture.

If I load the obj as exported by RC directly in FBX Review, I also see no texture. This feels significant.

If I load the obj in CloudCompare (I’d try MeshLab, but it crashes on run on my machine), it loads and displays the texture just fine.

This seems to be consistent for all obj exports from RC. I can upload them to Sketchfab and the texture appears (Sketchfab issues error messages though), if I load them in CloudCompare or MeshLab (now that seems to be working) the texture shows, but FBX Review and FBX Convertor just don’t want to show it.

Hamish

Hi. I’m having the same issues here as Hamish. I’ve been struggling for days to get a colored, textured RC model ported into Unity, but the lack of FBX support from RC makes it very difficult. Can you please give us a timeline on when FBX support will be implemented. A tutorial on how to deal with this would also be much appreciated.

Looking forward to FBX support as well, for bringing cameras and meshes into Modo.

For importing a really hirez mesh (ex. 20millions) in Zbrush the only way possible is use the fbx importer plugin because obj format is limited to around 15millions polygon, over that the software crash. I tried to use the FBX converter but it look like to not work at all on my side with this density of triangle.

So, it could be a great addition to RC! :slight_smile:

Hi,

I was just preparing to come back and update this request when I got a notice of an udated version with FBX support - great stuff, thanks!

My update was that with further experiments I discovered that FBX convertor was able to include textures. At least two issues led to my belief that it didn’t.

  1. On OS X, if textures are external, and if FBX Review is installed from the app store, then the app store sandbox won’t allow it to load the textures.

  2. Crucially - FBX review creates materials with ambient light values of 1 1 1, which in some models makes the texture almost invisible, and entirely invisible on faces facing the viewer.

(I’m puzzled by the last point - my reading this weekend on ambient lighting suggests that angle should have no part in it.)

Another problem was that an RC export passed through FBX Convertor has the wrong orientation.

The new FBX export is a GREAT step forward, thanks, but the ambient light problem is still there. I’ll pick this up in a separate thread.

Hamish