This page discusses using Maya .mb/.ma files (Maya 8.0+) directly rather than exported fbx files.
What are there benefits to this approach?
Do we get something that the fbx format cannot give us?
Not having to maintain two versions of the file. Like having the original in .ma/mb and exporting to fbx.
Instead you can just use the mb.
That’s the only difference as far as I know.
Its better because you can double click on the MA inside unity and edit it in maya, save the changes in maya and see the changes automatically reflected in Unity. Compare this to an exportation process and the benefits that come from the convenience are obvious.
It’s actually the same in the end, since importing a Maya file launches Maya in the background and makes it export to .fbx. There isn’t really any direct Maya importing. But it saves having to export manually.
–Eric
One thing to keep in mind is you need maya installed to use a .mb file. I ran into this problem when I converted a project from my pc with a maya license to IOS project on my mac. Nothing would load because I didn’t have a license on my mac. I ended up writting a mel script to convert all my .mb files into .fbx files. If that will never be a problem, then I would use .mb files, but if you ever need to send stuff to a freelancer who might not use maya, or perhaps do what I did and convert from PC to Mac, then use .fbx just because everyone can open them.
Richard
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