FBX to PLY converter: vertex colours where the file has them kept
Drop an .fbx and get one .ply file, converted in Blender on our server. The trip keeps vertex colours where the file has them; the skeleton and the skin weights, the shape keys and the materials and the textures cannot come along. Free, no account, nothing to install.
How do I convert FBX to PLY?
Drop the file on this page, wait while the server converts it, and download one .ply file.
- 1Choose an .fbx, or a zip of the folder that holds it with its textures. Files up to 50 MB.
- 2The converter opens it in Blender on our server and writes PLY. Most files take under a minute; the page shows the result in 3D when it is done.
- 3Download one .ply file. The upload and the result are deleted 3 days later.
- In:
- binary .fbx (or a zip with its textures)
- Out:
- one .ply file
- Keeps:
- vertex colours where the file has them
- Cost:
- free, no account
- The skeleton and the skin weights, the shape keys and the materials and the textures cannot be carried into PLY.
What survives the trip
Binary FBX 7.1 (2011) and newer is read by Blender on our server. Textures embedded in the file come along; textures named by path are looked for beside the file, so a model whose images live in a folder should be zipped with that folder.
The result is a binary PLY with positions, normals, texture coordinates and, where the source carries a vertex-colour layer, colour per vertex. A model coloured by textures comes out without colour: images are not baked into vertices.
FBX and PLY do not hold the same things, and the page says so before you upload: the trip keeps vertex colours where the file has them, and the skeleton and the skin weights, the shape keys and the materials and the textures cannot come along. PLY is what MeshLab, CloudCompare, Open3D and most research code read before anything else.
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.
Binary FBX 7.1 and newer
ASCII FBX, the text dialect, is refused by most importers and by this one. FBX 6.x, the generation before 2011, cannot be read either. Re-export with the binary option from any 3D tool, or open it in Blender and save it again.
Colour only where the source has vertex colours
PLY colours vertices, not surfaces. A model painted with textures, which is nearly every game character, arrives as geometry with normals and texture coordinates and no colour. Keep such a model as GLB if it has to look right.
Uploads stop at 50 MB
A larger file is refused before anything is uploaded. Decimate a dense mesh or shrink the textures in your 3D tool first; neither changes the format.
Frequently asked questions
The textures are missing in the result. Why?
The source FBX named its images by a path on the machine it was made on, and those files were not in the upload. Zip the .fbx together with its texture folder and upload the zip; the converter binds the images by the names the materials ask for.
Why would I want a PLY of a textured model?
Geometry processing: measuring, remeshing, sampling points, computing distances. MeshLab, CloudCompare and Open3D read PLY before anything else, and for that work the colour does not matter.
Is anything uploaded, and for how long?
Yes: the file you drop goes to our server in New York, is converted there, and both the upload and the result are deleted 3 days after the conversion. Nothing is shared with anyone.
Can I look at the FBX first?
Yes, without uploading anything: the FBX viewer draws it in your browser. Open the FBX viewer →
Can this become a VTuber avatar?
Not from PLY: an avatar needs a skeleton, skin weights and a face that moves, and PLY has no room for them. Convert the rigged source to VRM instead.
The other format pairs
All 50 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 files.
PLY to GLB
PLY in, GLB out, free: one file.
PLY to FBX
PLY in, FBX out, free: one file.
PLY to OBJ
PLY in, OBJ out, free: zipped with its files.
GLB to PLY
GLB in, PLY out, free: one file.
FBX to STL
FBX in, STL out, free: one file.
FBX to DAE
FBX in, DAE out, free: zipped with its files.
FBX to USDZ
FBX in, USDZ out, free: one file.
OBJ to PLY
OBJ in, PLY out, free: one file.
STL to PLY
STL in, PLY out, free: one file.
PLY to STL
PLY in, STL out, free: one file.
PLY to DAE
PLY in, DAE out, free: zipped with its files.
PLY to USDZ
PLY in, USDZ out, free: one file.
DAE to PLY
DAE in, PLY out, free: one file.
USDZ to PLY
USDZ in, PLY out, free: one file.
FBX to 3MF
FBX in, 3MF 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.
DAE to FBX
DAE in, FBX out, free: one file.
USDZ to FBX
USDZ in, FBX out, free: one file.
3MF to FBX
3MF 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?
Converting because the model is going into VTubing? PLY is not the format those apps read. The same rigged file becomes a VRM with its humanoid bones mapped and its materials converted, in one step on the FBX to VRM converter.
Open the VRM converter