Convert FBX to OBJ
FBX is a scene: meshes, materials, cameras, lights, skeletons and animation in one file. OBJ is geometry and nothing else. This tool takes every mesh out of the scene, puts it where the scene said it was, and writes it as an OBJ.
Drag a 3D file here, or.
This page is set up for FBX files. Other formats we can read work here too.
The file is read on your own computer. It is never uploaded.
Your file is read by your own browser and never sent to a server. There is no upload, no account and no copy of your model anywhere but on your computer.
A scene becomes geometry
An FBX holds a tree of nodes. Each node has a position, a rotation and a scale, and a mesh sits under one of them. A converter that ignores the tree gives you every part stacked at the origin. Here the whole tree is walked and each node’s place in the scene is baked into the coordinates, so the model arrives assembled.
What cannot come across is everything that is not shape. Rigs, skinning weights, animation takes, cameras and lights have no place in an OBJ. If you need those, FBX has to stay FBX.
Materials and textures
The diffuse colour of each material is read and written into a companion .mtl file, so you get a .zip with the .obj and the .mtl in it. Keep them together and the colours appear when you open the .obj.
The texture coordinates come across too, written into the .obj as it expects them. Those are the numbers saying which part of a picture belongs on which part of the model, and they are the expensive half of a texture — usually hours of somebody’s work, and impossible to recover once lost.
The pictures come too, when the FBX is carrying them. Most FBX files pack their images inside themselves; those are decoded, written out as PNG files beside the .obj and named in the .mtl, so the download is a zip holding the whole set. An FBX that only points at image files on the artist’s own disk is the exception — there is nothing inside it to unpack, and the .obj arrives with its unwrap and its colours and no picture.
Scale: FBX means centimetres
FBX files from Maya, 3ds Max and Blender’s exporter are normally in centimetres. The format does record a unit scale, but so little software writes it correctly that it cannot be trusted, so centimetres is the starting assumption here and the first unit box shows it.
If your model comes out ten times too big or too small, that box is what to change. Watch the width, depth and height beside the 3D view until they match the size you expect.
Two files claiming to be FBX are often twenty years apart
FBX has been through many versions since 1996, and the format changed shape completely along the way. Everything from about 2009 onward is binary; before that it was a text format that looks nothing like the binary one. Both are read here, and anything from version 7000 up — which is what every piece of current software writes — is fully supported.
What you cannot tell from the outside is which you have. The extension is the same, the icon is the same, and the file itself gives no hint. If an FBX fails to open here, its age is the first thing to suspect: a file exported from 3ds Max 2009 or earlier may predate what any current reader handles. Opening it in a recent version of Blender and exporting it again costs nothing and usually fixes it.
What survives, and what does not
Kept in the OBJ file
- Every mesh in the scene, in the place the scene put it
- Object names, written as OBJ groups
- Material colours, in a companion .mtl file
- Texture images packed inside the FBX, written out beside the .obj
- The texture coordinates that place them
- Vertex normals, rebuilt from the geometry
Lost on the way
- Animation, skeletons and skinning weights
- Images the FBX only points at, rather than carries — those never left the machine it was made on
- Cameras, lights and anything else that is not a mesh
How to convert FBX to OBJ
Drop the .fbx file in
Binary and text FBX are both read. Everything the file carries inside it, textures included, comes with it — you do not need the folder that sat beside it.
Check the scene arrived assembled
Every node’s transform is applied as the file is read, so parts should be in their right places. A pile of shapes stacked at the origin would mean the tree was ignored, and it is not.
Set the input unit — usually centimetres
FBX from Maya, Max and Blender is normally centimetres. The format does record a unit but too little software writes it correctly to trust, so check the measurements rather than the file.
Set the output up axis to Y for a modelling program
FBX is usually Y-up already, so this often needs nothing. The marker in the corner of the 3D view shows what will be written.
Download and unzip
A textured model arrives as a zip: the .obj, the .mtl, and a PNG for each picture. Unzip the lot into one folder and open the .obj.
FBX and OBJ compared
| Property | FBX.fbx | OBJ.obj |
|---|---|---|
| File contents | Binary in every version since 2009, with an older text form still accepted. | Plain text, one item per line. Materials live in a separate .mtl file beside it. |
| Geometry | Triangles and polygons, with full skinning, blend shapes and animation curves. | Triangles and polygons. Also stores free-form curves, which almost nothing writes. |
| Units | Recorded in the file header, commonly centimetres. | None. Like STL, the numbers are bare, though exporters usually mean metres. |
| Colour and texture | Materials and textures, optionally embedded inside the file itself. | Material names and texture coordinates, with the materials themselves in the .mtl file. |
| Separate objects | A full scene graph with bones, cameras, lights and animation takes. | Named objects and groups, each able to carry its own material. |
| Published by | Kaydara, 1996, bought by Autodesk in 2006. The format is closed. | Wavefront Technologies, 1980s, for the Advanced Visualizer. |
| Written by | Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder, Unity and Unreal. | Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, ZBrush and most modelling programs. |
Questions
- Can you convert OBJ back to FBX?
- No, and neither can any other browser tool that is honest about it. FBX is Autodesk’s format and the only complete implementation is their own closed library, which cannot run in a browser. We will not offer a button that produces a broken file.
- Does it work with binary FBX?
- Yes. Both the binary and the text form of FBX are read, and version 7000 and above is supported, which covers everything current software writes.
- My FBX has textures. Will they come through?
- Yes, if the images are inside the FBX, which is the usual arrangement. They are written into the zip as PNG files and named in the .mtl. If the FBX only refers to pictures that live in a folder next to it, those pictures were never in the file we were given, so the .obj arrives with the unwrap and the colours and you link the images yourself.
- Why did I get a zip instead of an .obj?
- Because an OBJ with a surface is more than one file: the .obj, the .mtl that holds its colours, and a picture for each texture. The zip holds them together. Unzip all of it into the same folder and open the .obj.
- My FBX will not open. What should I try?
- Export it again from a recent version of Blender. FBX files from 2009 and earlier use a completely different text layout that current readers do not handle, and a round trip through Blender rewrites it as modern binary.
Where to go next
Other things to do with a FBX file
Other ways to get a OBJ file
Related guides and tools
- Repair an STL that will not sliceClose the holes and separate the bad edges so a slicer accepts it
- Reduce the size of an STL fileFewer triangles, the same shape, a much smaller file
- Check whether an STL is ready to printFind out what is wrong with a model before you print it
- Convert BLEND to FBXGuide
- Convert GLB to FBXGuide
- Convert BLEND to OBJGuide
- Convert BLEND to STLGuide