Convert glTF to FBX
The same Blender route as GLB to FBX, with one extra thing to get right at the start: a .gltf is usually not the whole model. It points at a .bin holding the geometry and at image files holding the textures, and all of them have to be present.
We cannot write FBX — the format is closed and the one open library that reads it has no exporter. We read glTF and GLB perfectly well and convert them to plenty of other things, but FBX is not one we can produce.
Converting a glTF to FBX in Blender
Check you have all the files
(in your file manager)
A .gltf normally comes with a .bin and a folder of images. Open the .gltf in a text editor and search for `"uri"` — every value you find is a file that has to be present, in the location the path describes, relative to the .gltf.
A .gltf with its data embedded as base64 needs no companions and works alone. You can tell by whether the uri values are filenames or very long strings starting `data:`.
Import into an empty Blender scene
File → New → General → press X → File → Import → glTF 2.0 (.glb/.gltf)
Select the .gltf itself, not the .bin. Blender resolves the companion files from the paths inside it.
If Blender reports a missing file, the .bin or an image is not where the .gltf says it is. Put everything in the arrangement the paths describe and import again.
Check the materials imported
Material Preview shading (third sphere icon, top right of the viewport)
The model should look the way it did in whatever viewer you had it in. Grey or pink means a texture did not resolve — go back and check the image files are where the .gltf expects.
Apply all transforms
Select all (A) → Object → Apply → All Transforms
Bakes the transforms into the mesh data so the destination has nothing to interpret. glTF scenes often have deeply nested nodes with transforms at several levels, which makes this more useful here than usual.
Export with textures embedded
File → Export → FBX (.fbx) → Include → Path Mode: Copy → Embed Textures
The images arrived in Blender as packed data or as external files depending on how the glTF stored them. Path Mode Copy with Embed Textures makes the FBX self-contained either way.
Set the export options and write the file
Object Types: Mesh, Armature · Apply Scalings: FBX All · Forward: -Z · Up: Y
Untick cameras, lights and empties. glTF imports frequently create empties for scene nodes, and those arrive in a game engine as objects nobody wanted.
glTF, GLB, and which you actually have
They are the same format in two wrappers. A .glb is one binary file with everything inside it. A .gltf is JSON, and it stores its geometry and images in one of two ways: as separate files beside it, which is what most exporters write, or embedded as base64 data URIs inside the JSON itself.
The difference matters only at the moment you hand the file to something. A .glb cannot arrive incomplete. A .gltf with separate companions arrives incomplete every time somebody emails only the .gltf, which happens constantly.
If you are about to do several things with this model, converting it to GLB first is worth the extra step — it packs everything into one file, and that file cannot lose its parts. That conversion does run here, in your browser.
To find out which kind you have, open the .gltf in any text editor and search for `"uri"`. Filenames mean companion files. Long strings beginning `data:` mean it is self-contained.
Why Blender rather than a command-line tool
There are command-line converters that handle glTF, and FBX2glTF from Facebook is the well-known one — but it goes the wrong way for this, converting FBX into glTF rather than the reverse.
The reason is the one that runs through this whole section: writing FBX requires Autodesk’s SDK or a reimplementation of it, and almost nobody has written the latter. Blender has, over many years, as part of being a program that has to interoperate with everything.
So for glTF to FBX specifically, Blender is not merely the free option — it is close to the only option that does not involve buying Maya or 3ds Max. That is worth knowing before spending time looking for something lighter.
What to check before you send the result
Import the FBX back into a fresh Blender scene. If the materials still have their images and the model is the right way up and the right size, it will behave the same way in a game engine.
If the destination is Unity or Unreal, import it there and look before building anything on top of it. Scale and rotation problems are one setting to fix at that point and tedious to fix once the asset has colliders, materials and prefabs attached.
And it is worth asking whether FBX is required at all. Unity reads glTF through glTFast, Unreal imports it natively, and going directly avoids the material conversion from glTF’s metalness-roughness model to FBX’s older specular one, which always loses a little.
Where we can actually help
Packing the .gltf and its companions into a single GLB is the step that stops files going missing, and it runs here. So does converting to OBJ or USDZ if the destination can take either.
Questions
- Blender says a file is missing when I import the .gltf.
- The .bin or an image is not where the .gltf expects it. Open the .gltf in a text editor, search for "uri", and make sure every file it names is present at that relative path.
- Should I convert to GLB first?
- It is worth it if you will do several things with the model. A GLB is one file with everything inside it and cannot lose its parts. That conversion runs here in your browser.
- Is there a command-line tool for this?
- Not a good one. FBX2glTF converts the other direction. Writing FBX needs Autodesk’s SDK or a reimplementation, and Blender is effectively the only free software that has one.
- Do the materials convert cleanly?
- Partially. glTF uses a metalness-roughness model and FBX uses an older specular one, so base colour and normal maps come across reliably while metal surfaces usually need adjusting at the other end.
Where to go next
Related guides
About these formats
Checked against current software versions on 2026-09-11