Free online USDZ to FBX converter

Unity, Unreal Engine, Autodesk tools, and many animation pipelines accept FBX more directly than USDZ. Converting an Apple AR asset makes its geometry, materials, rigging, or animation available for editing and import in those applications.

What the USDZ format is

USDZ is a package format based on OpenUSD (Universal Scene Description). It is normally an uncompressed, unencrypted ZIP archive containing a USD scene layer—such as .usd, .usda, or .usdc—plus referenced textures and other assets.

Apple uses USDZ for AR Quick Look, RealityKit, Reality Composer, and augmented-reality content shared through websites, Messages, and apps. USDZ files also come from Pixar USD tools, Apple development tools, and 3D applications that export OpenUSD. The package is intended to keep a scene and its local assets together for distribution, not to serve as a general-purpose editing format.

What the FBX format is

FBX is Autodesk’s 3D scene-interchange format. It can store polygon meshes, transforms, materials, cameras, lights, skeletons, skin weights, and keyframe animation in one scene file.

FBX is supported by Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max, Blender, Unity, Unreal Engine, MotionBuilder, and many game, film, and animation pipelines. Compared with OBJ, it can preserve bones and animation as well as mesh data, although the result depends on the source scene and the importing and exporting software.

How to convert USDZ to FBX

Blender is a practical desktop option because it can import OpenUSD and export FBX without an Autodesk subscription. Use a recent Blender version with its USD import and FBX export features enabled.

1. Make a backup copy of the USDZ file. Extract the copy with an archive utility, or run unzip model.usdz -d model_extracted. Renaming model.usdz to model.zip may allow a file manager to open it, but do not edit the original package.
2. Preserve the extracted directory structure. Locate the package’s root USD layer, which may use the .usd, .usda, or .usdc extension. Keep referenced textures, sublayers, and other assets at their original relative paths.
3. In Blender, select File → Import → Universal Scene Description and open the root USD layer. Some Blender versions can open .usdz directly; extracting it first gives more reliable access to referenced files and makes missing assets easier to diagnose.
4. Inspect the imported scene before exporting. Check mesh visibility, object hierarchy, scale, axis orientation, normals, texture paths, materials, cameras, and animation. Relink missing images in Blender while the extracted asset directory is available.
5. Select the required objects, then choose File → Export → FBX (.fbx). Enable Selected Objects to exclude unrelated scene content. Use Apply Transform when the destination requires Blender’s displayed rotation and scale to be baked into the exported objects.
6. Under the FBX path settings, choose Copy if texture files should be collected with the export. Enable Embed Textures only when the receiving application supports embedded FBX media; otherwise deliver the FBX together with its texture directory. Enable Bake Animation when exporting keyframes or skeletal motion and set the required frame range.
7. Click Export FBX, then open the result in the target application. Verify units, orientation, normals, texture assignments, material appearance, skin deformation, and animation. You can also convert the file on 101convert.com for free without installing software.

Quality and compatibility limitations

The conversion is not lossless because OpenUSD and FBX use different scene models. USD composition arcs, variants, payloads, procedural assets, custom schemas, complex instancing, AR metadata, annotations, and advanced material networks may be ignored or flattened during import and export.

Materials are a common source of differences. USD Preview Surface or MaterialX networks may become ordinary Blender materials, and FBX usually carries texture references rather than the complete source shader graph. Transparent, metallic, emissive, and physically based materials may need manual adjustment in the destination application.

Animation and rigging require inspection after conversion. Constraints, deformers, nonstandard skeletons, animation layers, and procedural motion may not survive; baking animation converts supported motion into keyframes but cannot reproduce unsupported behavior. Cameras and lights can also change because applications interpret axes, focal lengths, and units differently.

USD commonly uses meters, while an FBX importer may apply its own unit scale. Set the intended units explicitly and compare a known object dimension after import. If Blender cannot read a binary .usdc layer or a package with complex composition, use a current OpenUSD tool or USD-capable digital-content application to export a simpler .usd or .usda layer, then import that layer into Blender.