Hey folks,

I'm just about (finally!) ready to upgrade from Apprentice HD to FX.

There's just one grey area that I've obviously never been able to test, but is crucial to my day job - FBX Export.

Over the years I've read stories and mention of issues with exporting materials (types/channels), vertex normals (vert/edge smoothing groups), animation rigs, skinning, custom attributes, and so forth.

I realise no application outside of AD handles FBX as well as AD native applications, but I'm hoping Houdini does better than most, because …well, it's Houdini.

So, how do things stand with H13?

Which FBX Exporter versions are supported?

Is there anything I should know, or any tips, for working between H13<>Max<>Maya (and UE4 & Unity if anyone else is working on those platforms)?


I'm guessing there are no showstoppers, as I know there's more than a few lurkers here also working in game studios.

Cheers!

Latest build of Houdini 13 doesn't have FBX2015 which is latest release from AD. While Houdini 13 have FBX2014. In production I faced constrain and skinning exchange issue from Maya to Houdini even it crashes Houdini and rest of other things works fine for me. now days I prefer alembic to FBX as it's faster and having a lot of options for display and rendering. You can export rig also. But you can't tweak animation and it may crashes your Houdini session.
If you want to tweak animation then go for FBX otherwise alembic is better option.

PradeepBarua
Latest build of Houdini 13 doesn't have FBX2015 which is latest release from AD.

For the record, Houdini 13 was released in Oct 2013, and FBX 2015 was released in March 2014.

Thanks guys.

I've not had crash issues importing FBX files (I can test that much at least), so it may be specific to content. Really it's the outgoing stuff I'm most interested in - Alembic may be fine with Maya, but not an option for Max (not upgraded since 2013, trying to “get away” from it) …not sure about Modo, I'll have to look into that but it's bit of a special case anyway.

FBX 2014 is fine - most of our pipeline is still 2012/2013, though that'll move to 2015 towards the end of the year.