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I have a character in Blender. It needs to be exported to Maya for rendering in VRAY. I need to figure out how to preserve the following:

1) Textures and UVs.

2) Material assignments to different parts of the mesh.

3) Crease. Currently the model is using a subsurf modifier in Blender, and some edges need to be creased. Maya also has options to smooth and subdivide the mesh, and it's own form of Creasing to preserve edges.

4) Group assignments of multiple objects.

5) Challenge Mode: The rig. The character will actually be rigged in Maya, so I'm not worried about this for this specific project. But it'd be nice to know how to do it in general.

What format and settings do I need? Is there one that can handle all of these issues?

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe using a .fbx? You may need to apply the subsurf modifier in Blender for it to be "baked" into the model (or the fbx exporter may do that automatically). Please note, I have not used Maya, I just know what Unity does and it appears to work. You may or may not need to relink your textures though. $\endgroup$
    – Gliderman
    Jul 25, 2016 at 0:46
  • $\begingroup$ I want to avoid applying the subsurf, as that will make the mesh a nightmare for the rigger, and we don't want that level of topology in the viewport. $\endgroup$
    – Ascalon
    Jul 25, 2016 at 1:00
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    $\begingroup$ You do know that there is vray for blender. However that does not help since you are exporting it to be rigged in maya. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Jul 25, 2016 at 3:37
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I do. Unfortunately this project involves a team, and we have a lot of assets coming from other programs that we can cleanly bring into Maya, but not Blender. We'd just render in Blender with Cycles if we could get all our scenes and stuff in, but there's too many other import/export problems. $\endgroup$
    – Ascalon
    Jul 25, 2016 at 4:46

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Unfortunately, FBX is the only serious option currently (maybe with Collada, but that format is not much supported/developed nowadays…).

FBX can support edge crease (LayerElementCrease node), just never had time/reasons to implement that in Blender. And I'd need a simple FBX file exported e.g. from Maya, with a dummy cube and various levels of crease on its edges, to be reasonably sure we do handle it correctly…

Besides that, afaik FBX does not support/have notion of groups of objects.

It should support reasonably simple rigging, but do not expect advanced stuff (like drivers, constraints, etc.) to survive, only basic bones skinned with basic vgroups.

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