| Filename extension | .fbx |
|---|---|
| Type code | 'FBX' |
| Developed by | Autodesk |
FBX is technology and a file format (.fbx) owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to provide interoperability between digital content creation applications.
Contents |
FBX originated as a replacement file format for Montreal-based Kaydara's (company founded in 1993) Filmbox software. FiLMBOX was designed for users to capture motion data from motion capture devices. Prior to 1996, FiLMBOX 1.0 used .FLM as its file format. This format only supported motion data, users' preferences and a list of devices used in the capturing of the motion data. This data was a serialized version of the libraries (binary dump), containing read/write memory data. Because the data was written in this format, problems would eventually arise in supporting legacy files with upcoming FiLMBOX releases. Parallel to this issue, there was an immediate demand from the early-adopting users of FiLMBOX for Kaydara to implement a target character in a scene with the motion capture data, so as to enable the visualization of the data in a 3D view with display markers. In order to support this request, Kaydara had enough reasons to go ahead and change FiLMBOX' native file format.
To separate itself from the FLM file extension name, Kaydara decided upon "FBX" (an abbreviation for the FiLMBOX product name). FBX was therefore born in 1996, with the release of FiLMBOX 1.5. This new file format was an object-based model, allowing for the storing of motion data along with 2D, 3D, audio, and video data. The support for other software packages started with SoftImage 3D, Alias|Wavefront PowerAnimator, NewTek LightWave, Kinetix 3D Studio MAX and the Unity game engine.
Years passed, more releases were supported by the format and FiLMBOX was renamed to MotionBuilder, with its 4.0 release in 2002. Kaydara launched FBX for Apple's QuickTime Viewer in 2003. Alias announced its intention to acquire Kaydara on August 8, 2004, sealing the deal in September of the same year. A Software Development Kit was developed in 2005 to ensure that everyone used the same object model, in turn allowing other software developers to provide plug-ins of their own. Alias was then acquired by Autodesk on January 10, 2006.
There have been numerous optimizations made to the FBX object model since then, most notably in 2005 in regards to how the data is stored and in 2006 to allow for properties support. As the demands and imagination of 3D artists change over time, the FBX file format continues to evolve. The goal of the FBX technology is to constantly and significantly improve interoperability between Autodesk products and other Digital content creation (DCC) software packages.
Autodesk provides a C++ FBX SDK that can read, write, and convert to/from FBX files.
The FBX file format is proprietary, however, the format description is exposed in the FBX Extensions SDK which provides source code for the FBX readers and writers.
Currently there are 2 FBX SDK bindings: one for C++ and Python supplied by Autodesk. Blender includes a Python export script for FBX, written without using the FBX SDK[1] and OpenEndedGroup's Field includes a Java based library for loading and extracting interesting parts from a FBX file [2].
FBX SDK is designed with interactive desktop applications in mind, and does not have much functionality useful in server (web, virtual worlds, etc) applications. In particular, there is no support for data streaming - the whole scene has to be loaded together.
The current version of FBX SDK (2012.1) supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, along with the previous version 2011.3.1.