No FBX in Archicad 26

[Rex Maximilian]

Having downloaded Archicad 26 today, my first order of business was to see if they’ve included FBX export from the 3D window.

Nope.

Everyone, I’m at a loss for words. Imagine a word processing app not being able to save PDF, or an image editing program not being able to save JPG!

FBX is the industry standard for 3D model exchange and asset creation, and our $5K software with a $900 yearly price tag to remain current can’t save an industry standard format… SketchUp can… Revit can… Archicad falls short!

What are our options? A petition? An en masse open letter to major software publications highlighting this glaring omission?

Graphisoft has stopped responding to any forum post regarding FBX, and obviously from its lack of FBX exportability in Archicad 26, Graphisoft has ignored our repeated requests!

But guess what Archicad can export?

1. Electric Image (last release in 2013)
2. Piranesi (last release in 2007)
3. Wavefront (acquired by Autodesk in 2008)
4. Collada (last release in 2008)
5. VRML (last code update in 1997)

They offer us these antiquated and outdated formats, yet no FBX! What do we do next?

Graphisoft, you’re on the clock here. We need a response and we need it now.

[Emre Senoglu]

previous discussion regarding the matter: Twinmotion Forum Thread 

[Rex Maximilian]

But, the gist of this thread is why hasn't Graphisoft provided the FBX exporter themselves like they have many of the other export options? They've had over a year since it went away.

[Rex Maximilian]

Redacted

[Holanxy]

Archixad should restore the fbx export option in newer builds, it's so annoying and frustrating not have fbx export. 

[Lingwisyer]

They cannot just restore it as the exporter is the IP of Epic and they have decided to no longer provide it, but that still leaves the question of why they do not develope their own...

[Eduardo Rolon]

Actually FBX is owned by ADesk so it has nothing to do with Epic IP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBX

There also is a Blender specification

https://code.blender.org/2013/08/fbx-binary-file-format-specification/

Which is Python Based and AC supposedly runs Python so …

[Lingwisyer]

Don't they have to purchase the licence to use FBX then code their own Archicad to FBX translator which would be the IP of Epic? So while FBX is the IP of Autodesk, the translator itself was the IP of Epic.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Don't think so. TM reads FBX so there is no extra step. If it helps, it is like Publishing to DWG once you do that you don't need to convert to SketchUp or VW they just read the file.

[Laszlo Nagy · Accepted solution]

Did you guys watch the Building Together event?

In the "Building for the future of Architecture w/ Q&A" session, there was a question about when FBX Export can be expected, to which the following answer was given by @Janos Detre, Senior Business Product Manager, Graphisoft Product Success:

"The short answer is very soon. We definitely acknowledge that FBX is a very performant file format and it is used for all those [the question mentioned the following use cases: real-time rendering, augmented reality, metaverse, gaming, and asset warehouse markets] which you mentioned basically, very, very efficient visualization pipelines, also towards AR and VR apps, and what I can tell you is that we are actively working on providing this capability, especially the export option which you explicitly mentioned, very, very soon. So we are on it."

https://events.graphisoft.com/event/building-together-2022/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfMTAzNjEwMA==

The question and answer start at the 26:30 mark.

[Rex Maximilian]

Does "very soon" mean in a hot fix update, or waiting until 27? An "off-the-record" comment by someone at GS told me it'll most likely be 27... I hope it's sooner, as I feel all of us who paid for subscription, which had very little value for smaller firms in 2022, can at least get some return on our SSA expenditures. Thanks!