Why no .fbx

[MaliceSmash]

The editor is a great idea but it is usless without a good fileformat. So why not use the standard file format .fbx like unity3d or udt does? Almost every 3d-app has .fbx exporters.

[Neikun]

The game was created before thoughts of modding capabilities were introduced.
John Wordsworth of this community has generously created the Grimrock Model Toolkit that allows us to open model files and edit them, or export them to be edited in greater variety.

[Brodie301]

And if I'm not mistaken the .model format is something AH uses theirselves, it needed a converter .fbx wasn't the problem.
But he is working on this as well:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4431

[LordYig]

The editor is a great idea but it is usless without a good fileformat. So why not use the standard file format .fbx like unity3d or udt does? Almost every 3d-app has .fbx exporters.

I understand your remark but you should understand as well the developers position when they started building their game.

The game engine is entirely homemade by Almost Human. afaik.
Almost human is a company of only a few people.
This game is their first project as far as i know.

I suppose they did not had enough money to pay the license of common and widely used game engine like unity or udk.
Those game engines came out of the box with a full set of tools, wide support for models and textures formats, support for various shaders, etc. But they are not free.

As neikun as pointed out, the game was made before support for modding was even mentioned.
So I guess they only introduce support for the easiest adaptable format into the engine and made their own tools to export and convert other formats they were using at the time. The animation format is a good example since it is entirely custom made for the engine if i'm not mistaken.

In the end the question is not why they did not added support for standard format, but did adding this support was worth the effort during the game development process ?
I think you have the answer since the game does not support those format natively.

[JohnWordsworth]

Some great points already posted, especially that the game was not intended to be editable at the start.

FBX is a very height-weight file format and I don't think it would make sense for the Legend of Grimrock engine to load FBX files directly into the game. (A) It would take a lot longer for the game to load (as it would need to extract the lightweight game data from the heavy FBX files), (B) The developers would have to worry about future changes to the FBX file format, or ignore them. (C) The game would not support all FBX features (like NURBs etc) which would cause confusion.

I guess Almost Human could've added some form of FBX processing into the editor, but that could taken quite a while to implement and I guess it would've had some of the same problems as above (with the FBX SDK, and only supporting a subset of the FBX features). Still, the GrimModel specs are out there, so it's only a matter of time before the community tools will be ready with FBX support . I think FBX support is best left at the toolchain level, and not the game level - and as the public editor was an afterthought, I think it's amazing that Almost Human, with their limited resources, were able to add to the already released game at all.

[thomson]

I suppose they did not had enough money to pay the license of common and widely used game engine like unity or udk.

Not everything in life is about money. Creating something from scratch often gives you immense feel of accomplishment when the work is done.

[Brodie301]

@thomson
I agree, if I had an IP would want it to be as proprietary as possible, get it out there and do my own lic.

And I give major kudos to AH the way they handled this IP as small as they are. Working for other big game companies they probably had an exact business model for the way they wanted their company to develop.

[juho]

I suppose they did not had enough money to pay the license of common and widely used game engine like unity or udk.

Not everything in life is about money. Creating something from scratch often gives you immense feel of accomplishment when the work is done.

Making a custom in-house engine was a deliberate decision and had nothing to do with money. Having our own engine gave us the ultimate control of how to do things and it also allowed the super fast iteration loops that essentially made it possible for us to make the game in the first place.

Here in AH we're using .fbx that are then converted to .model by the engine. We understand the inconvenience of using external converter but we had to cut some corners with the editor and modding support. The editor in itself was a huge undertaking for Petri and some features had to be dropped and we had to rely on the goodwill and enthusiasm of the community. Luckily there are talented members like JohnWordsworth in the community that have helped us immensely.

[LordYig]

Making a custom in-house engine was a deliberate decision and had nothing to do with money. Having our own engine gave us the ultimate control of how to do things and it also allowed the super fast iteration loops that essentially made it possible for us to make the game in the first place. (...)

Thanks for your answer juho.
It's clear as glass now.