@ideasman42, cheers bud. About the animation support etc etc. There’s a great little fbx importer (and .py blender exporter) that a guy called Norbert Nopper has been working on using the FBX sdk that supports animation, skinning, lights and some other nice goodies (this was what i based my own FBX tools on for my engine before i realised i wouldnt be able to pack the fbx sdk tools needed when i release the engine (so annoying autodesk, do us a favour and Open source FBX SDK.) But if you look through the code with the graphics engine download it should help you out. Cheers
I get this:
Version 6100 unsupported, must be 7100 or later
with r59489
Well, as I read on Norbert Nopper site, he was creating an exporter from blender (thats what i understood).
I would like to import animation into blender with the fbx.
It would be a great feature.
Hope its gonna be supported soon :).
You have to convert your fbx-file with the Autodesk FBX Converter Tool (=free) to Version 2013 binary !
In my opinion it would be a great first step if the importer could import armatures/rigs and vertex weight for skinning.
If you have a fbx rig connected to the imported model, we could seperately import bvh mocap data and copy the animation to the imported armature to get the model animated in blender.
Maybe it’s a good idea to do animation import step by step (1. import armatures, 2. import skinning data, 3. import animation data).
The past programming efforts in getting a fbx importer for blender showed, that they often failed at the step, where it comes to importing the animations. This seems to be very tricky. Maybe this is something for GSOC2014 ?
But maybe I’m completely wrong and campbell is able to do the job in no time, cause he knows blenders internals very good.
I’m sure that blender fbx model and animation import would be a big milestone for the blender project, cause it would remove big workflow flaws.
2013 import works fine (some loose edges but thats easy to clean up). A small feature request, would be nice if import would work with drag and drop.
The importer shouldn’t just stop working if the version of the fbx is below 7100 but also give a hint about how the problem can be fixed : “Please convert your FBX file to a newer version > 2011 with the fbx converter from autodesk.” It’s only a small usability suggestion.
@EYBTM, well that kinda sums up 90% of people on here that cause trouble. If you think he’s only created an exporter maybe you should compile the engine code for his OPEN GL REALTIME engine and then import some .fbx assets. Maybe your be surprised (like in the video i posted that clearly showed imported skinned & animated models from FBX format. But you never know i could be wrong and hallucinating the whole thing) :).
@el_diablo If you have a file with some invalid edges (that are not in the export), could you upload an example?
Drag-n-drop is off topic. (not specific to FBX).
@jomeier, Yep this needs to be broken into steps, I would add mesh weights, then armatures before full animation support. And your probably that this is tricky - not just Blender projects, even commercial apps have trouble with armature compatibility from what I’ve seen (XNA and UDK are very picky about armatures that load fine elsewhere).
But adding support for all of this is still a large task even if its broken up into steps.
What about vertex colors? Is this planned or a comparatively ‘small’ task?
@Daccy, after updating the file to FBX-7.3 it works, I notice there is a camera and lamps - but I can’t tell if they are oriented correctly or not.
@mAlkAv!An, yes, vertex colors will be supported (sample files welcome).
Screenshot: http://www.abload.de/img/vcolmattest01phz3s.png
FBX File:
Attachments
VertexPaintTest01.zip (37 KB)
I can’t really tell either since I didn’t add a camera nor light. I assume they must have been added automatically while exporting, since the option to export them was checked.
This time though, I’ve added my own camera and light with proper orientation. You can compare with the screen below and see if it imports correctly.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7hrmq0twegg5pbt/tilton2.fbx
Also, it might be worth mentioning that the model wasn’t created in AutoCAD, but exported from Inventor as a DWG. That goes for all models I’ve uploaded so far.
Campbell, you might be interested in Autodesk’s FBX converter. The install includes - not counting the converter - a bunch of example FBX-files created with various Autodesk products, which might be useful for testing purposes. The install also includes a viewer, so it’s possible to verify the models and their orientation.
Good idea. I tried to import the samples (converted it to version 2013 binary before) from the FBX converters sample directory and this few didn’t get imported in blender (several and very different error messages):
- bird_leg.fbx
- particlebubbles.fbx
- xray.fbx
- zombie.fbx
@Ideasman42:
I don’t like to get sued for uploading Autodesk stuff. Please download the FBX converter and try the files 
@3DLuver didnt mean to cause any trouble 
i just could find it…
I m not a developer so i apologize if i understand it wrong…
It seems amazing
Relax, dont worry about the few posters who are aggressive and provocative. “90%” of the problem is that some posters dont respond nicely to anyone or they feel the need to write in belittling manner.
You are right, the more one can import with fbx into blender, the better.
Nice to know armature can be imported into blender, this is important for gaming project, currently we use md5 format, it would be nice to export directly from blender to game.
@ideasman42, is there any hope to support smooth group exchange between blender and 3dsmax?
you can check the file:https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhqiwq427zs6xcy/smoothflat.FBX
you can download the fbx viewer here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?id=10775855&siteID=123112
there’s a plugin for quick time 7 to view fbx
for mac you can download quicktime 7 here :http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923
it can also be imported into 3dsmax but can not import to blender
thanks
@mAlkAv!An, thanks for the example, added support for vertex colors r4705.
http://markmail.org/message/gnldfzs6wuygul6q
@davyzhang, blender doesn’t support smooth groups, but they could be converted into sharp edges on import as OBJ does.
On Linux Autodesk only give limited support (command line fbx-converter), which I’ve been using, but no viewer, Ill check if the sample files are available.