New member, first post, new Blender user coming from Softimage, Maya, and some other 3D apps.
I have a nicely organized scene in Maya, that I exported to FBX, including camera’s.
For one, the hierarchy in Maya is completely flattened after import in Blender.
Second, all the imported cameras don’t keep their settings unfortunately.
The import picks everything up nicely, but there’s no structure anymore, and redoing all again in Blender is quite the task.
I have exported into various FBX format versions after looking at the Blender docs and here on the forum, but so far no luck.
IS this a limitation of Blender, or is there a plugin that does work?
I think it’s a bug, as in Maya a re-import, or in Softimage a import will result in the proper hierarchy,
Will DL and install the latest build, and 2.79 as well to see what’s going on.
After some testing I can only say it’s a bug on the Blender side.
I DL’d v.279b and the latest 2.8 build, but in both cases the same result.
In addition, I tested several FBX versions inside Softimage 2014-15, Maya 2017 and Houdini 16-17 with the same proper hierarchy as a result.
If anyone is willing to place a bug report somewhere, it would be much appreciated.
I will test this scene in steps, it might be that there’s something that’s not working well with the importer.
Might be interesting to see where it breaks, compared to other importers…
FBX is a proprietary format and it’s license doesn’t allow for the code to be distributed with Blender. The format had to be reverse engineered in order to be included in Blender. As such, there are unavoidable limitations and issues. You might try a different format if possible.
Regarding the interchange I think it would be worth looking at what kind of hierarchy you are talking about. FBX limitations aside there may be some incompatibility between what you are doing in Maya and Blender. For example Blender does not have groups in the same way that Maya does. Also Blender has an odd way of dealing with parenting at times.
In general though I would say you are maybe trying to do too broad of a sweep. And that simplifying the process might give better results. For example, export portions of the scene to FBX and reconstruct in Blender. Or import some things as OBJ and reconstruct your hierarchy in Blender. Export cameras separately, and so on, rather than expect it all to work in one go. Even though it works in other apps, Blender’s limited FBX and also different way of treating objects might cause issues.
From my experience going out of Blender in FBX is far more reliable than the other way for some reason.
I understand, but not being able to properly process (more complex) FBX files is quite the limitation imho.
For years now most studios rely on FBX to move over models, animaton data, textures, UV’s etc.
I did some more testing, but even smaller chunks come in as a long list. Quite the bummer
I have been looking into this, but it seems that the FBX EULA is the cause of all problems.
And there’s no-one out there that is selling a proper FBX solution for Blender as far as I can find.
Which would solve all problems regarding GPL and FBX EULa as far as I understand.
I have absolutely no problem with buying a plugin that works like in all the others apps, and be sure that things ‘just work’…
Simply put. I would not use FBX as a reliable format to export to Blender. Nice to say it should work. But that won’t help you. In this case the best practice is to build the scene in Blender if that is your target rendering solution.
Find out what elements work and those that don’t. And plan accordingly. Use FBX to help where it can. And that with a combination of Obj. For character animation don’t even bother. Export as Alembic.
We are all aware of the EULA. The situation sucks. And has for a number of years.
I use Maya and Motion Builder in my pipeline as well. Along with various apps in the past. And Blender is not the only app that has an issue with Fbx. Especially with characters.
Wish I could shed more light. But I can tell you just expecting it to work or waiting for someone to write a plugin won’t solve your issue. The only option you have is to work around it.
