FBX to USDZ converter — a game asset into iPhone AR
VTubeMe's FBX to USDZ converter writes your .fbx as a .usdz package for AR Quick Look: Y-up, in metres, UsdPreviewSurface materials, embedded textures packaged, skeleton and blend shapes included. Free, five a day, up to 50 MB. Not tested on a device.
How do I convert an FBX to USDZ?
Drop the .fbx on this page and download a .usdz — then open it on your own iPhone, because we could not.
- 1Drop your binary .fbx into the box above, up to 50 MB; sign in when prompted. Its textures must be embedded in the file.
- 2The file is opened in Blender on our server and written with its USD exporter as a .usdz: Y-up, one metre per unit, UsdPreviewSurface materials, textures inside.
- 3Download the .usdz and try it in AR Quick Look on an iPhone or iPad.
- Accepts:
- one binary .fbx (7.1 or newer) up to 50 MB.
- Returns:
- one .usdz. Never a loose .usd, .usda or .usdc.
- Costs:
- nothing, and no credits — an account, though: five conversions per account per rolling 24 hours, shared across all the free format pairs. Conversions that fail are not counted.
- Measured:
- 10 materials, 15 textures, 73 bones and 118 blend shapes in the 4.46 MB package; uncompressed, 64-byte aligned, Y-up, metres; skinned size identical to the FBX's.
- Not opened in AR Quick Look, on any device, by us.
- Animation does not travel.
- An FBX that names its textures by path instead of embedding them gives a package with no images.
What actually happens to the file
The model exists as FBX — from Maya, 3ds Max, an asset store — and has to appear in AR on an iPhone, which opens USDZ and nothing else. FBX's centimetres are converted to metres on the way in, and the package declares one metre per unit, which is what places an object at real size in a room.
We could not test on a phone. What was verified: the package is an uncompressed, 64-byte-aligned zip with the USD layer first; the stage is Y-up with a default prim; it holds 10 meshes, a skeleton, 118 blend shapes and all 15 textures; and Pixar's UsdSkel bakes the skin to the same 1.7605 × 1.8143 × 0.3017 m the FBX measures.
Texture files keep the name and bytes the FBX gave them. If an FBX embeds a JPEG under a .png name, the package carries the same mismatch; a viewer that trusts the extension may not show that texture.
What this conversion cannot do
Measured on real files, not assumed. Everything below is a property of the formats or of the pipeline, and knowing it beforehand is cheaper than discovering it in your 3D tool.
Checked as a package, not on a phone
We cannot open AR Quick Look here, so this was not tested on an iPhone, an iPad or a Vision Pro. What was checked on the file itself: it is an uncompressed zip with the USD layer first and every entry aligned to 64 bytes, which is what the usdz specification requires; the stage is Y-up at one metre per unit with a default prim; materials are UsdPreviewSurface; and it re-imports into Blender with its materials and textures. Try it on your own device before you ship it.
Animation does not travel
The skeleton is written, the motion curves are not. Reading an FBX's animation costs about 1.5 GB of memory on a long clip, which is more than the converter container has, so the importer is asked to skip it and the exporter writes none. A file that arrives with a walk cycle leaves with the same rig in its bind pose. If what you have is the motion rather than the model, the FBX to VRMA converter is the tool that keeps it.
Materials become UsdPreviewSurface
That is the one material model AR Quick Look reads: base colour, metallic, roughness, normal, opacity, emission. All 10 materials and all 15 images of the sample avatar came through and are inside the package. Anything beyond that model — toon shading, glTF extensions such as transmission or clearcoat, custom node graphs — has no place in it and arrives as a plain surface.
The package is not compressed
A usdz must be a zip with no compression, so its size is the size of the textures inside it: the same avatar came to 19.1 MB with PNG textures and under 5 MB with JPEG ones. Images keep the format they arrive in. If the file is for a web page, shrink the textures before converting.
Uploads stop at 50 MB
This pair takes files up to 50 MB — half of what the GLB, FBX and OBJ pairs take among themselves, because dense scans and print files cost the converter far more memory per megabyte than a game character does. For scale: a binary STL of 50 MB is about a million triangles, and we converted one of 999,698. If your file is larger, decimate it first; MeshLab and Blender both do that without changing the format.
Five conversions a day, per account
This pair is free and takes no credits, but one account gets five conversions per rolling 24 hours across all the free format pairs together — the converter is one machine and this is what keeps it answering. Each slot frees itself 24 hours after it was used; nothing expires at midnight. Conversions that fail are not counted.
Frequently asked questions
Will this open in AR Quick Look on an iPhone?
It is written the way Apple's viewer expects — a .usdz package, Y-up, metres, UsdPreviewSurface materials, textures inside — and we verified that structure on the file. We did not open it on a device, so we will not promise it. The usual failures on real phones are size (very large textures) and materials the preview surface cannot express, not the container.
My FBX has no embedded textures. What happens?
The package arrives with the materials and no images, because a path to a folder on the artist's computer cannot be followed from here. Re-export the FBX with “embed media” on, or convert a GLB of the same model, which always carries its textures. GLB to USDZ converter →
Can I get a .usd, .usda or .usdc instead?
Not from this page. Those are single layers that reference their textures as separate files, so one download could not hold a textured model. A .usdz is the same layer with the textures packaged beside it; any USD tool will unpack it — it is a plain zip — or read it directly.
Can I inspect the USDZ without an iPhone?
Yes — the USDZ viewer opens it in your browser. It shows the contents; it is not a substitute for AR Quick Look. Open the USDZ viewer →
The other format pairs
All 30 are free, all run the same pipeline, and all say what they drop.
FBX to GLB
FBX in, GLB out — free, one file.
FBX to OBJ
FBX in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
USDZ to GLB
USDZ in, GLB out — free, one file.
USDZ to FBX
USDZ in, FBX out — free, one file.
USDZ to OBJ
USDZ in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
GLB to USDZ
GLB in, USDZ out — free, one file.
FBX to STL
FBX in, STL out — free, one file.
FBX to PLY
FBX in, PLY out — free, one file.
FBX to DAE
FBX in, DAE out — free, zipped with its textures.
OBJ to USDZ
OBJ in, USDZ out — free, one file.
GLB to FBX
GLB in, FBX out — free, one file.
Blender (.blend) to FBX
Blender (.blend) in, FBX out — free, one file.
STL to FBX
STL in, FBX out — free, one file.
PLY to FBX
PLY in, FBX out — free, one file.
DAE to FBX
DAE in, FBX out — free, one file.
Only want to look at the file? GLB viewer, FBX viewer and OBJ viewer all run on your own device — nothing is uploaded.
Is your model going into VTubing?
If the model is a rigged character and it is headed for VTubing, none of these containers is the destination — VSeeFace, Warudo and VNyan load VRM. The VRM converter takes the same rigged FBX or GLB, maps its skeleton onto the VRM humanoid and converts the materials.
Open the VRM converter