USDZ to FBX converter — out of AR, into a DCC tool
VTubeMe's USDZ to FBX converter turns a .usdz, .usd, .usda or .usdc into a binary FBX for Unity, Unreal, Maya and 3ds Max, with the skeleton, blend shapes and textures inside. Free, five a day, up to 50 MB. Animation does not travel.
How do I convert a USDZ to FBX?
Drop the .usdz on this page and download a binary .fbx with the textures embedded.
- 1Drop your .usdz into the box above, up to 50 MB; sign in when prompted. A loose .usd, .usda or .usdc works too — zip it with its textures if it has any.
- 2The stage is opened in Blender on our server and written as binary FBX 7.4: skeleton, skin weights and blend shapes carried, textures embedded, the stage's unit and up axis applied.
- 3Download the .fbx and import it into your engine or DCC tool.
- Accepts:
- a .usdz, .usd, .usda or .usdc, or a .zip of a loose USD file with its folder; up to 50 MB.
- Returns:
- one binary FBX with the textures embedded.
- 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:
- 73 bones, 10 skinned meshes, 118 blend shapes, 10 materials and 15 images in; the same out, all 15 images embedded.
- Animation does not travel; cameras and lights are left out.
- A USD file that references files outside your upload is refused.
- The textures are written out and re-embedded, and that step re-encodes them — see the limits below.
What actually happens to the file
A USDZ usually reaches you finished — from an iPhone scan, an AR product page or Reality Composer — and editing it means getting it into a tool that speaks FBX. USD's skeleton and blend shapes map onto FBX's bones and blend shapes, and UsdPreviewSurface maps onto a plain FBX material.
On a rigged character the FBX came back with 73 bones, 10 skinned meshes, 118 blend shapes, 10 materials and all 15 images embedded, at 16,867 triangles and 1.81 m tall. The rigged file we measured was our own USDZ output fed back in, so it shows the reader and the writer agree; a textured quad written by hand and packaged with Pixar's own tool (not Blender) also arrived with its texture. USDZ files from Reality Composer, scanning apps or Omniverse were not available to test.
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.
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.
A USD file that reaches outside its own folder is refused
USD is built to assemble a scene out of other files — sublayers, references, payloads, textures by path. On a server that is a way to read files that are not yours, so before the file is opened every path in it is checked, layer by layer. Only plain relative paths that stay inside your upload are followed; an absolute path of any operating system (C:\... included), a web or file:// address, a path that climbs out of the folder, a layer that is referenced but was not uploaded, or value clips get the whole conversion refused — a texture named by an absolute path on the author's own disk is enough. A .usdz is self-contained and is the form that always works; a loose .usd, .usda or .usdc with files beside it should be zipped with its folder.
The model is converted, the stage is not
Meshes, materials, UsdPreviewSurface textures, skeletons and blend shapes are read. Cameras, lights and the dome light are left out because none of the targets is a scene format, and animation is not carried by any of these pairs. Materials were tested in the UsdPreviewSurface form only — the one AR files use; a stage shaded with MaterialX or a renderer's own networks was not tested, and may arrive plain.
Textures are re-encoded on the way into the FBX
Images packaged in a .usdz are written to disk before the FBX embeds them, and that step saves each one again — a JPEG is compressed a second time and may be embedded under a .png name. Resolution is unchanged and the difference is small (about one level in 255 on average when we measured the same step on another pair), but it is not lossless.
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
Does the skeleton come through?
On the file we measured, yes: 73 bones, 10 skinned meshes and 118 blend shapes in and out. That file was a USDZ written by this site's own converter. A skeleton from another USD exporter goes through the same reader but was not tested. Open the result in the FBX viewer →
Do you take .usd, .usda and .usdc as well as .usdz?
Yes, all four. We ran the same cube through as .usda (text), .usdc (binary) and .usd and got the same result each time. They are accepted as input only: when USD is the target, the result is always a .usdz, because a loose USD file would leave its textures behind.
Is the size preserved?
Yes. A USD stage declares metersPerUnit and an up axis and both are honoured: a cube 100 units wide in a stage declaring 0.01 metres per unit and Y-up came out one metre wide and upright in GLB, FBX and OBJ.
Can I look inside a USDZ without converting it?
Yes — the USDZ viewer opens it in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Open the USDZ viewer →
The other format pairs
All 30 are free, all run the same pipeline, and all say what they drop.
GLB to FBX
GLB in, FBX out — free, one file.
FBX to GLB
FBX in, GLB out — free, one file.
FBX to OBJ
FBX in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
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.
USDZ to GLB
USDZ in, GLB out — free, one file.
USDZ to OBJ
USDZ in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
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.
FBX to USDZ
FBX in, USDZ out — free, one file.
GLB to USDZ
GLB in, USDZ out — free, one file.
OBJ to USDZ
OBJ in, USDZ 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