Export mesh/map type size difference (TIFF, JPEG, ASCII, Binary)
polycounter lvl 4
As i was trying to export mesh to texture it on Substance Painter. First i used obj. format file size, it was around 45 mb, after that when i exported it as fbx it came out as 14 mb; and i could not see any difference with the export in terms of result. Am i doing something wrong here, i dont understand how come such a standart format as .obj might be so useless compared to fbx format. (I had nothing but the mesh in the scene not i selected options to export them, no lights, no rigs, no animations, no nodes)
After that i did some research, i saw people saying that fbx and obj format are similar when it comes to exporting the mesh only. I also have this graph indicating that difference between fbx and obj is simply lights and animation(Which was spmething i knew before):
Resource: https://all3dp.com/3d-file-format-3d-files-3d-printer-3d-cad-vrml-stl-obj/
But as i explained i got very different results. But as i was experimenting, i changed the coding of my fbx format to ASCII from Binary, and FBX with ASCII coding result was around 50 mb. I know OBJs are also coded ASCII.
Another similar thing occurred as i exported the maps from Substance Painter; when i exported targa, file size was 150 mb in total; when i exported jpg it came out 30mb; this also made me super confused. I must be missing some point here. After i made some research i understood that JPEG averages the data and this causes with a lossy compression which means loss of quality and file size reduction; whereas targa does not compress data, preserves detail and results with larger files. When i searched the forum about the related topics people are all saying that jpeg should not be used, targa is the obvious choice. However considering the file size difference, should not this much quality difference be seen as compensable? What is it so obvious that i am missing about this subject.
Also i did not eve see that much of a difference between jpg and targa (Snapshot from marmoset):
Honestly, i dont even know which is which.
I also consider these are all might be due to my mistakes of practice.
Please help
Anything appreciated.
After that i did some research, i saw people saying that fbx and obj format are similar when it comes to exporting the mesh only. I also have this graph indicating that difference between fbx and obj is simply lights and animation(Which was spmething i knew before):
Resource: https://all3dp.com/3d-file-format-3d-files-3d-printer-3d-cad-vrml-stl-obj/
But as i explained i got very different results. But as i was experimenting, i changed the coding of my fbx format to ASCII from Binary, and FBX with ASCII coding result was around 50 mb. I know OBJs are also coded ASCII.
Another similar thing occurred as i exported the maps from Substance Painter; when i exported targa, file size was 150 mb in total; when i exported jpg it came out 30mb; this also made me super confused. I must be missing some point here. After i made some research i understood that JPEG averages the data and this causes with a lossy compression which means loss of quality and file size reduction; whereas targa does not compress data, preserves detail and results with larger files. When i searched the forum about the related topics people are all saying that jpeg should not be used, targa is the obvious choice. However considering the file size difference, should not this much quality difference be seen as compensable? What is it so obvious that i am missing about this subject.
Also i did not eve see that much of a difference between jpg and targa (Snapshot from marmoset):
Honestly, i dont even know which is which.
I also consider these are all might be due to my mistakes of practice.
Please help
Anything appreciated.
Replies
You can check if a file is binary by opening it in a text editor like notepad++ If its full of squiggles it's not ASCII and must be binary
File size is unrelated to goodness unless you are comparing compression formats.
Fbx is a scene description format, not just a model format.
For 99% of situations the following works best..
Use fbx (binary) because it retains more data than obj (which is old)
Use. png for your textures because it supports higher bit depths than tga (which is old), the compression is lossless and you can see the thumbnails in windows without a stupid plugin
If you need HDR then there are formats that support it ( .HDR, .EXR)
OBJ and TGA are not up to the task these days