File formats

glTF vs FBX

Both carry 3D models with materials, skeletons and animation, but they come from different worlds.

#formats
#pipeline
#3d-file-formats
#pbr-materials

Quick answer

What is the difference between glTF and FBX?

Both carry 3D models with materials, skeletons and animation, but they come from different worlds. glTF is an open Khronos standard built for fast loading in real-time and web apps, with PBR materials defined in the spec. FBX is Autodesk's proprietary interchange format, long the default for moving rigged characters into Unity and Unreal Engine.

Open standard versus proprietary format

The deepest difference is who controls the format. glTF is published by the Khronos Group, the consortium behind OpenGL and Vulkan, and its full specification is public. Anyone can write a reader or writer that behaves exactly as the spec says.

FBX belongs to Autodesk. Its complete specification is not published. Tools either license the FBX SDK or reverse-engineer the format, which is why FBX files that open perfectly in one program can arrive with flipped axes, oversized bones or missing materials in another. Blender's FBX support is a reverse-engineered implementation for exactly this reason.

Materials and textures

glTF defines its material model in the specification: physically based, metallic-roughness PBR, with fixed rules for each texture, such as metalness in the blue channel and roughness in the green channel of a shared map. A glTF material therefore looks broadly the same in Blender, Three.js, Godot and Unreal Engine.

FBX has no single agreed PBR material. Each exporter writes material data in its own way and each importer guesses at it, so materials are often rebuilt by hand after import. Textures referenced by file path are a common casualty: move the FBX without its images and they disappear.

Animation and rigs

Both formats store skeletons, skin weights, keyframe animation and morph targets. FBX has the longer history here and remains the default handoff for rigged characters in many studio pipelines, especially between Maya, MotionBuilder and game engines. glTF handles the same data and is the safer choice for web and real-time delivery, where small file size and fast loading matter.

Engine and tool support

Unity imports FBX natively and reads glTF through Unity's glTFast package.
Unreal Engine imports both directly.
Godot recommends glTF 2.0. Since Godot 4.3, FBX is imported through the built-in ufbx library.
The web runs on glTF. Three.js and Babylon.js load GLB files directly, and it is the format behind most browser 3D viewers.
Blender imports and exports both.

Which should you choose?

Pick glTF or GLB for web and AR projects, Godot, static props, and any asset where materials must arrive intact. Pick FBX when your target is Unity without extra packages, when a studio pipeline expects it, or for complex character animation moving between Autodesk tools.

For a game project that targets several engines, keeping both is cheap: export glTF as the master copy and FBX where a tool demands it. Whichever you choose, check the scale and up-axis on first import, and keep any LOD levels named the way your engine expects. For the wider picture, including OBJ, STL and USD, see 3D file formats.

glTF and FBX compared

glTF and FBX compared
Feature	glTF / GLB	FBX
Ownership	Open standard (Khronos Group)	Proprietary (Autodesk)
Specification	Public, versioned (glTF 2.0)	Not fully public; accessed through the FBX SDK
Materials	PBR metallic-roughness defined in the spec	No single PBR standard; each tool interprets materials its own way
Textures	Embedded in .glb or referenced by .gltf	Embedded or referenced; paths often break
Animation and skinning	Yes	Yes, with the longest track record in animation pipelines
Unity	Via the glTFast package	Native import
Unreal Engine	Native import	Native import
Godot	Recommended format	Supported (ufbx importer, Godot 4.3+)
Web (Three.js	Babylon.js)	Native	Rarely used

glTF vs FBX in Vi3W

Vi3W exports both, plus GLB and OBJ. Choose GLB for the web and Godot, and FBX when you are dropping assets into Unity. Both carry the PBR textures generated with the model. The sketch-to-3D page shows where export fits in the workflow.

Frequently asked questions

Can Gltf replace Fbx already?

For static and PBR-textured assets, mostly yes: glTF moves models between Blender, Godot, Unreal Engine and the web more predictably than FBX, because its materials and conventions are defined in an open spec. FBX still holds on in animation-heavy studio pipelines and in Unity, which imports it natively and handles glTF through a package. Many teams use both.

Textures go missing when opening FBX in Unity from Blender

Usually the FBX references image files Unity cannot find, or the textures were procedural and never existed as images. Bake procedural textures to image files, put the images in the Unity project next to the model, and use Extract Textures and Extract Materials in the model's import settings. Embedding media on export, by setting Path Mode to Copy and enabling the embed option in Blender's FBX exporter, also helps.

How can I convert a glTF metallic-roughness map into two separate roughness and metallic maps?

Split the channels. The glTF spec stores roughness in the green channel and metalness in the blue channel of one linear texture. In Blender, feed the image into a Separate Color node and bake or save the G and B outputs as their own greyscale images. In an image editor, copy the green and blue channels into new files. Keep them as linear, non-colour data.

Sources & further reading

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Last reviewed 1 October 2026