FBX the new hotness?

Autocon

So just from reading threads by other people and such it seems that FBX is the new way to import to UDK and has been for a bit I assume? Mainly just want to check as I haven't had time to keep up to date on every patch notes with each UDK update so I wasn't sure.

Also why the change to FBX? What benefits do it offer? And are there any check boxs that must be hit when exporting from Max/Maya to UDK as apposed to exporting FBX files between Max and Maya?

Thanks

Tyrone70

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXImporterUserGuide.html

I love FBX. Makes life easier for me when I'm on a team.

Autocon

Thanks for the link

It is important to note that it takes longer to read & parse an FBX file than a PSK/ASE file.

dose this pertain to reading the files once they are in UDK/impacting performance or dose this only refer to reading/writing the file in Max/Maya?

Oniram

interesting. the team im currently working with has actually never used fbx. if there is some sort of a benefit of exporting as that it may be worth trying out.

Arcanox

Thanks for posting this. I remember in Max 7 or 8 FBX was completely fubar for certain operations. The interoperability and even a straight import-export was just broken in some cases.

I guess they've been doing a whole bunch of work with it over the last while though. I should give it another shot with udk.

haiddasalami

One awesome thing about FBX is it knew where my textures were if I connected them in Maya. Anyone know if now you still have to triangulate to get FBX in there?

O and Autocon you can batch export FBX much better than ASE for Maya. Hitting my head right now on some problems doing that :P

Numerator

haiddasalami wrote: »

Anyone know if now you still have to triangulate to get FBX in there?

Yes. You still need to triangulate. There are still some models that do not import even if they are triangulated. I'm not sure why, though.

Zack Fowler

Best reason to use FBX: explicit normals support.



Look mom, no normals map! This is just a chamfered cube using explicit normals to flatten the main surfaces. Even without manually changing your vertex normals, it's nice to be able to use the normals that MAX assigns to the mesh instead of the normals improvised by UE3 (as happens for ASE).

Autocon

Oh thats pretty sweet Zack.

Thanks for all the info guys. But on the Triangulate topic. Do you mean triangulate in it must be at least all quads/tris aka no ngons? Or do you actually mean the model must be converted to all tris before importing?

If everything must be all tris what are the best methods for Max and Maya if anyone knows, to do this?

mbullister

Autocon wrote: »

Oh thats pretty sweet Zack.

Thanks for all the info guys. But on the Triangulate topic. Do you mean triangulate in it must be at least all quads/tris aka no ngons? Or do you actually mean the model must be converted to all tris before importing?

If everything must be all tris what are the best methods for Max and Maya if anyone knows, to do this?

All tris.

Here's the difference between exporting an all-quads editable poly and a triangulated mesh:



This'll fight your normal map and can cause bad silhouettes on curved surfaces.


In max, the best way I know is to apply a "turn to mesh" modifier with invisble edges unchecked. Using 'editable mesh' instead of 'editable poly' seems to work as well.

Bal

What Zack said, I switched to FBX for proper vertex normal supports, so good to finally have that in UDK.