[Bf-gamedev] Proposal to (try to) get better FBX support (Nahuel Belich)

[mail at smokythaklown.com]

  .blend file is "THE" open exchange and rearrange!!!! all other
programs will cease to exist as they will be blended into the blender if
they have anything worth bleeeenddiiiinggggg!!!!!! They are obsolete
already just thinking about them.

On 17-09-2014, Bastien Montagne
wrote: 

> I do not think Collada is the way to go, I would even say
it's the other direction we should take, if we were to work on a new
format.
> 
> I would go to a minimalistic format. FBX is much better
than collada on this regard, but it is cluttered with an history of
crapiness - and some aspects (like its object transform model) are still
crazy.
> 
> An exchange format does not have to support every possible
feature. An exchange format has to be simple!
> 
> E.g. I like Wavefront
.obj format - it is simple (even though Max managed to break it with odd
expectations on smoothgroups :/ )!
> 
> So if I where to design a new
format, I would take the basics of FBX, and get rid of everything I do
not like in it (the multi ways to represent an armature and skinning,
the insane object transform handling, complex anim curves, etc.) - not
to mention stupid unused things like custom shaders, etc.
> 
> We should
even probably build it bottom-up: we start with a *very* simple base,
e.g. object + (mesh) geometry, and then build upon this, step by step,
with each time wide consultation of all interested entities & people to
know whether this is *really* needed.
> 
> And having a system of custom
props, for people who really want to write more specific/advanced
data.
> 
> Just my two cents, imho time needed to design and get
accepted a new format would be really huge, this won't work unless a
good part of the CG/Game community (including some big companies) step
in - and I have the feeling most are more or less satisfied with current
status… :/
> 
> Bastien
> 
> Le 17/09/2014 09:56, Jens Christian
Restemeier a écrit : 
> 
>>> I had tweet this question, is it an insane
idea? to contact the the mayor game engine companies (udk, unity,
crytek, tell me another important) and others 3d apps to, and start some
sort of new open exchange format?.
>>> Autodesk put the fbx in the
market because need to expand conection among "their" aplication and
even among those, took years to take info correctly from one application
to another, and the rest took that because it was there, im sure that
many main 3d sofware companies have similar problems trying to deal with
the close fbx sdk.
>>> This where my two cents, for the moment im using
blender fbx to export to unity but at the same time i dont like to see
effort waste in something that may change and become obsolete with
future changes on a close code that its so hard to tackle.
>> 
>> That
already exists: https://collada.org/ [1] 
>> I generally like the idea
of Collada, but it has a few major problems: 
>> It is hugely
over-engineered: You can write any data that a modelling application may
want to write, and any data that a rendering engine may need. While that
is a good thing for an exporter, an importer has to support everything
and translate this into an application format, or you would need
intermediate tools to massage your data into a format you can use. 
>>
Applications have varying levels of support: There is no reference
implementation (that I know of). The official SDK is only a DOM loader
(last time I checked). It's not as easy to use as FBX where you plug in
your model file and get back a scene graph. I've got a file with a few
separate skinned models that works fine in Maya and Unity3D, but Blender
fails to find the bone-to-deformer info. (I haven't checked if that is
because of my exporter code or a bug in the Blender importer. It fails
to match SID identifiers.) 
>> The shader model is massive overkill: You
can include everything from high level blinn/lambert shaders to a low
level cgfx-style rendering description with passes and render states.
And while I like the split into materials and effects, applications that
don't support this don't seem to map this cleanly to their system. 
>>
Collada supports many ways for blocks in a file to reference each other
other even external files. That may be hard to map into an
application-internal format if you want to keep them intact for an
export. 
>> Some people I spoke with are not happy with the underlying
XML format, and who would prefer a binary format. I don't really care
that much, because it is easy to load and write XML, but I see their
point if you want to support huge models. 
>> I think there are a few
other attempts at open interchange formats, but they don't seem to have
much traction so far. 
>> Of course, if you want to put in the effort I
would try to polish the Collada code instead of inventing another
format. 
>> Jens 
>> 
>>
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Links:
------
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[2]
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[3]
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