Import FBX and OBJ

Import adds a model made in another app to the model you have open: Blender, a modeling app on the iPad, an asset pack. It works the same on iPad and Mac, and in the free version too.

Import a model

1. Open the model to add to, or start a new one.
2. Press Import, the tray with a down arrow in the toolbar at the top.
3. Pick the file:
   • an .fbx on its own, or with its textures if they are separate files;
   • an .obj with its .mtl and its textures (on iPad, tap Select in the file picker to pick several files; on a Mac, Command-click them);
   • or a .zip holding all of them, such as the one Qwartz shares when it exports an OBJ.
4. The Import sheet shows what’s in the file: objects, materials, the unit an FBX was made in, and the size. Auto-fit scales the model to about 2 units across. Turn it off to type a scale, or use a preset (0.01 for an OBJ made in centimeters: an OBJ doesn’t say its unit).
5. Press Import. One step of undo takes it back out.

Qwartz can only open the files you pick. An OBJ names its .mtl and its textures, but if they aren’t picked with it, the model comes in without them: in grey, or in its colors without its images. Import again with all of them selected, or as a .zip.

What comes in. Each mesh becomes an object, with its name and position. Faces keep their shape: quads stay quads. Materials keep their colors, UVs and textures come with the faces that have them, and an FBX made in centimeters or inches is converted to meters. Animation, bones, cameras and lights are left out.

Paint on a model without UVs

A model without UVs is ready to paint as it is. Pick the Paint tool and paint on any face: each face gets its own pixel grid, as on a model made in Qwartz. A face’s material color becomes the background you paint over, so nothing changes until you paint. See Pixel paint for the tools.

When you export, the painting is packed into one image with UVs, as for any model painted in Qwartz.

Paint on a model with UVs

If the model has UVs but no texture, Qwartz gives each of its materials an image to paint on, filled with the material’s color. The image is sized so its pixels come out about as big on the model as when you pixel paint: Pixel density in Settings sets it, like everywhere else. The model looks the same as before, and the paint goes on that image, following the model’s own UVs: what you paint lands where the UVs say, and the export keeps the same UVs.

Open the UV editor (the split-panel button in the toolbar) to see the image and the faces laid out on it. To paint at a finer resolution, give the material a larger image of your own with Replace Texture in the Materials panel. See Your own texture.

Paint on a model with a texture

A model that comes with its texture keeps it. Paint goes on that texture, through the model’s UVs, so you can touch up an existing asset: fix a seam, add a detail, recolor a part. The UV editor shows the texture with the faces on it, and you can paint there too.

When you export, the texture goes with the model, with your paint in it.

GLB and glTF (preview)

In a test build with Characters (preview) turned on in Settings, Import also takes .glb and .gltf files, the format most character generators and asset stores give. This part isn’t in the App Store version yet.

• A .glb holds everything in one file: pick it on its own.
• A .gltf may keep its data and its textures in separate files (a .bin, images): pick them with it, or a .zip that holds them all.

What comes in. Each mesh becomes an object, with its name, its place and its parent. Its faces come in as triangles, and the vertices the file split at UV seams are joined again. Materials keep their color and their texture, as the file has them. A rigged character keeps its bones, how its mesh follows them, and its animations, each as a clip; a scale animated in a clip is left out. Draco-compressed files can’t be read yet: export them again without compression.