Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
with the materials assigned to objects in your scene will be embedded in the FBX
file itself. Of course, this will have an impact on file size. If this file is imported into
another DCC, a folder will be created in the same location as the FBX file during
the import process, and all textures will be extracted into that folder (so that the
DCC can reference the location of those texture files). The same happens when
importing an FBX file with embedded media in a game engine. Once texture files
are embedded, simply dragging and dropping an FBX file into your game engine will
allow the engine to automatically assign textures to their proper material without
needing your manual assistance.
If you must export to the FBX ASCII file format, it is important to know that
media embedding is impossible when exporting to the FBX 2010 version and earlier
versions. ASCII embedding is only supported in the FBX 2011 version and above.
Certain game engines currently support the FBX 2010 and other earlier versions,
so you will need to understand the limitations of your target game engine before
creating any FBX files.
22.2.6 File Format and Versioning
One of the most important things to figure out before working between DCCs and
game engines is the version of FBX in both. When a new version of FBX technology
is made available, several plugins are offered to support older versions of the host
applications. For instance, 3ds Max and Maya FBX plugins support the current
and previous two versions of the software, while the Softimage FBX plugin version
is included only in the latest release. This is important information because if a
file is exported to a newer version of FBX than the target application's importer,
errors will most likely occur. You need to determine the FBX importer version
of your game engine as a first step. For instance, Unity 2.6 supports FBX 2010
and earlier versions. That is to say, all FBX 2010 plugins (i.e., 2010.0.02, 2010.1,
and 2010.2) will export FBX files that can be properly imported by Unity 2.6.
However, an FBX 2011 file will not properly import into Unity 2.6 (i.e., animation
is lost since animation data is written in a way that FBX 2010 importers don't
understand).
If you only have the option to use an FBX plugin that is more recent than
the FBX version of your game engine (for instance, you are using Maya 2011 and
the FBX 2011 plug-in, with Unity 2.6), you have two options for full compatibility
between the two applications. You can simply choose to export to an older version
of FBX by choosing the appropriate version in the Version dropdown list found in
the FBX File Format rollout in the Advanced Options rollout. Otherwise, you can
export to the FBX 2011 format and use the FBX Converter to convert your FBX
2011 file to a previous version that's compatible with Unity 2.6, like FBX 2010.
Either way, the resulting file will be compatible with your older FBX importer
found in your game engine. Usually, with a new release of a popular game engine,
the FBX version is updated to Autodesk's latest release, so this problem shouldn't
