Source metadata
- Type: Official Blender documentation
- Maintainer: Blender documentation team
- Accessed: 2026-04-24
- Primary URLs:
Key takeaways
- Blender’s glTF documentation frames glTF as a real-time model delivery format used by web and game engines. It supports meshes, textures, PBR materials, cameras, punctual lights and key animation types.
- The glTF exporter can export selected objects, visible objects or active collections. That supports a clean student workflow where only the finished asset leaves the Blender working scene.
- For mesh export, Blender exposes options for applying modifiers, exporting UVs, normals, tangents, vertex colours and material data.
- The glTF material path is strongest when students use Principled BSDF-style PBR materials with image textures that can be written as PNG or JPEG.
- The FBX documentation describes FBX as an interchange format used by applications and engines including Unity. It can bake mesh modifiers and animation into the exported file.
- Blender’s FBX documentation also highlights limits around bone orientation, action assignment, armature instances, material conversion and some unsupported features. Those limits make Unity-side testing necessary.
Notable claims
- glTF converts quads and n-gons to triangles for export, because runtime formats target graphics hardware.
- Blender’s glTF material export recognises specific node patterns, especially Principled BSDF inputs.
- Blender’s FBX support can transfer many game-useful assets, but it is not a guarantee that animation, materials or bones will appear exactly as expected in the target engine.
Relevance
This source informs:
- unity-3d-import-pipeline
- blender-overview
- 3d-production-pipeline
- overview-beginner-3d-game-development-route
Open questions raised
- Should GDnD teach FBX first because Unity’s own documentation centres FBX, or teach glTF as a clearer real-time asset format and then explain Unity-specific importer choices?
- Which Blender export preset should become the programme’s recommended baseline for static props?
- How should animated character export be split into a separate page to avoid overloading the beginner import workflow?