michiel | a year ago | 4 comments | 8 likes | 751 views

chaver, Omer, songbaojin and 5 others like this!

The latest version of BluffTitler supports 4 3D models formats: GLB, STL, OBJ and X. This page explains the differences.

GLB

GLB is the most feature-rich format. It supports colour, normal, occlusion, roughness, metalness and glow maps:
outerspace-software.com...

It also supports animation:
outerspace-software.com...

GLB uses the PBR (Physically Based Rendering) lighting model. If skillfully used by the model designer, it makes the models look very realistic:
outerspace-software.com...

GLB stores its textures inside the GLB file, so you never have have to worry about missing textures!

A good source for high quality GLB models is Sketchfab:
sketchfab.com...

STL

STL is a very primitive format. It's nothing more than a collection of triangles: no colours, no transparency, no textures, no submodels, no animation and only flat shading. But it's all you need for single colour 3D printing and for this reason has become very popular.

A good source for high quality STL models is MyMiniFactory:
myminifactory.com

Here's a trick to texture a STL model:
outerspace-software.com...

OBJ

OBJ is an old and primitive format, but still widely used as an exchange format for simple models.

OBJ stores its textures in separate picture files, like PNG or JPG. It also needs a separate MTL file to define the materials. Without an accompanying MTL file, OBJ files are fully white and untextured. Because this is easy to forget, you'll find many OBJ files on the internet with missing textures.

X

X is the DirectX model format. Because DirectX itself has stopped supporting it, other apps, including Blender, have also stopped supporting it. There clearly is no future for the X format.

To stay compatible with old shows, BluffTitler still supports X models, but we advise you not to use X models for new projects.

Some BixPacks use X models. We are in the process of converting them to OBJ in remastered versions, as we recently did with the Moon pack:
outerspace-software.com...

Conclusions

We are a big fan of the GLB format because it's a feature-rich open format with excellent documentation. And we're not the only one because in the recent years it has become a very popular format!

For simple models we prefer OBJ, for complex models GLB.

Try to convert your X models to OBJ or GLB.

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