xpadmin wrote:
Many open formats like collada, vmrl etc have been partially accepted by the industry.
But because 3d software is always keeps renewing itself it has been hard for these formats to keep up.
Or better formulated for the plugins to keep up.
The only other open format to my knowledge is .ma and therefore we have chosen for it.
Using .fbx is is easy to export Max models to Maya as well.
In my personal experience, .fbx has been the first format that allows models to be successfully exchanged between Max and Maya.
This makes it possible to use a large variety of 3d models without to much annoying conversions.
I think 3ds is the way to go if you want to exchange between maya and max. As both tools belong to autodesk, they refactored that interfaced as far as i know. Blender also supports 3ds by the way.
The ma format is barely supported by blender. There a few custom plugins which all do not work on every feature.
In my opinion the most complete, open and understandable thing is collada.
Blender comes with native collada support and the properitary tools do support collada too.
Collada was meant to be a universal exchange format. I never had serious problems with it.
FBX also works in most cases, but i have had some models which sufferd strange distortions and a unusable rig after import. OK - last time i tried that is few years ago...
3ds, cinema4d, maya, etc... are all extremly expensive products which DO NOT fit the needs of a private modder who does not want to do software piracy at all. Please dont force us to do so...