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

[Michael Knubben]

Smokythaklown, please don't turn this mailing list into a joke.

http://flickr.com/photos/michaelknubben/

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 11:49 AM, <mail at smokythaklown.com> wrote:

>  .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/
> 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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