3DSMAX: why export in fbx formant and not in 3ds?

Unity Engine
1

Hey there. Every tutorial i see they are telling to export in fbx format. I tried to export models in 3ds format and it works same.

Can anyone tell me about the difference and why should i export in fbx format.

Thanks.

2

fbx are smaller in size and they export the animations :smile:

3

thank you for explanation.

4

I dont think you “HAVE” to export to fbx. From docs:

Unity converts the 3dsmax files and animations to fbx on import.

5

I’m new to Unity and have been playing with the art pipeline both .max and .fbx

From what I can tell .max isn’t really feasible. When you drop a .max file into your assets, the .max file seems to be temporarily converted internally at runtime.

This is because .max files are procedural and don’t contain regular data, so you have to have 3dsmax with its .dll files installed. What actually happens is that Unity uses 3dsmax libs to recreate the scene, hence the long wait.

The other problem is that everyone else running your game needs 3dsmax installed. My coders can’t test my assets since they don’t have 3dsmax.

Since I am so new to Unity, I may be missing something. It seems strange that Unity can’t convert your .max file and store a .fbx file with your .max file. Something you can release with the game…

For now I’m sticking with .fbx, seems to work fine, just wish it would respect layers and hidden meshes.

6

Yeah I always export to FBX myself. Using the .max is good while your creating the asset to jump back and forth while making changes, but once the asset is final I just export the .FBX.