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Home > Supported File Formats > OpenFlight to FBX


How to convert OpenFlight (.flt) to FBX (FilmBox v5/v6/v7,.fbx)?


PolyTrans|CAD+DCC performs mathematically precise CAD, DCC/Animation, GIS and BIM 3D file conversions into all key downstream 3D packages and file formats. Okino software is used and trusted throughout the world by many tens of thousands of 3D professionals in mission & production critical environments, backed by respectable personal support directly from our core development team.

     

OpenFlight

OpenFlight is an industry standard realtime 3D scene description format developed, owned and maintained by Presagis, Inc. OpenFlight is the most widely used file format for visual simulation databases and is supported by dozens of vendors of realtime 3D tools. Military visual simulation includes battle simulation, fighter jet flight simulation, tank simulation. Visual simulation also includes geospecific terrain for accurate realtime fly through of regions of the planet.

In visual simulation, OpenFlight is the defacto standard format. OpenFlight is also prevalent in the PC animation and modeling communities for optimizing and tagging 3D data for realtime playback. As application examples, in the visual simulation industry OpenFlight is the format for entire worlds. In the entertainment industry it is widely used for level building in realtime games and in the AES or urban simulation industries it is used to organize and optimize scenes for realtime walkthroughs.

     

FBX

FBX is a 3D 'digital asset interchange' file format that had been pushed on the 3D industry by Autodesk after they acquired it from the bankruptcy assets of its prior owners, Alias Research and Kaydara of Canada. FBX has its placed in the DCC/Animation world but it does have its limitations, given that it is a closed and proprietary file format of Autodesk.

Note: if you are one of the many people who use FBX to convert data out of Navisworks, Revit, AutoCAD or Inventor then please use DWF-3D file format and Okino's DWF-3D import converter instead. It is a night and day difference but little known except to our core Okino users. Likewise, use our native program support for 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema-4D rather than use FBX.

FBX supports all the common attributes of a DCC/Animation file format such as mesh geometry with vertex normals and vertex colors, non-solids NURBS ('old school NURBS'), lights, cameras, hierarchy, bones and mesh skinning (deformations), materials and textures. In basic terms, it is similar to the capabilities of the COLLADA and VRML2/X3D file formats, and to Okino's long standard BDF data translation file format.

Okino has a very long history associated with FBX as it created the very first and fully implemented set of FBX import and export converters in 2002, with full animation, skinning and trimmed NURBS support. This was long before anyone had much heard of FBX. And to this very day we are still the only company that actively ships and supports FBX v5 (Kaydara), v6 (Alias) and v7 (Autodesk). However, FBX was just one of many 'not invented here' file formats which came to glut the 3D market in the 2005-2007 era, many of which petered away over time.

A key reason for its early adoption, throughout the 3D industry, was the availability of a free and officially supported (but closed) FBX SDK from Autodesk.

The downsides of the FBX file format is that (1) it has stagnated in recent years, (2) it is based on a legacy material model and not on modern PBR, (3) it is based on legacy lighting models and not on physically based lighting, and (4) it is a closed file format which only Autodesk can update or change. Otherwise, these restrictions have made it easier for software developers to implement FBX just once and then not have to worry about costly yearly revisions.