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FBX importer 4.17.1 in 2.81 results in meshes that don't display properly w/ Eevee (but do w/ Cycles)
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Description

System Information
Operating system: Darwin-18.7.0-x86_64-i386-64bit 64 Bits
Graphics card: AMD Radeon Pro 560X OpenGL Engine ATI Technologies Inc. 4.1 ATI-2.11.20

Blender Version
Broken: version: 2.81 (sub 12), branch: master, commit date: 2019-09-25 20:05, hash: rBf9d7f690b240 w/ FBX importer 4.17.1
Worked: 2.80 official release w/ FBX importer version 4.14.14

Addon Information
Name: FBX format (4, 17, 1)
Author: Campbell Barton, Bastien Montagne, Jens Restemeier

Short description of error
The most recent versions of the FBX importer (4.17.1) results in meshes that don't display properly. In Object mode parts of the mesh are invisible. In Edit mode parts of the mesh appear transparent. This does not occur in the official 2.80 release w/ FBX importer 1.14.14. When displaying the mesh using cycles, the invisible parts of the mesh become visible. So not sure if this is an importer or an Eevee problem.

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
Be aware that I am observing these problems on a Mac. I have not tried this on another OS.

I am providing a .FBX file w/o additional assets such as textures.


Try the following using the latest build of 2.81 and also using the official 2.80 release...

  • Start a fresh blender instance and delete everything from the default scene.
  • Go to File->Import->FBX (.fbx) and point to the file provided here but do not click Import FBX yet.
  • In the import settings make the following changes...
    • Under Animation make sure "Ignore Leaf Bones" and "Automatic Bone Correction" are selected.
  • Click Import FBX
  • With 2.80 notice the body of the character is complete. With 2.81 observe that there are invisible portions of the body.
  • Observe this behavior in all of solid, material preview (lookdev), and rendered modes w/ Eevee.
  • Switch to Cycles renderer and observe that all polygons are now visible.
  • Switch back to Eevee as the renderer and either solid, material preview, or rendered modes.
  • Select only the body of the character (object name is NFL_P_Hi_Body).
  • With 2.81 enter Edit mode. Notice that the invisible portions of the body now appear transparent. You can select vertices, edges, and faces as usual.
  • Turn on display of face normals and observe that the normals all appears to be oriented properly.

After the initial import the model in 2.80 looks like...

After the initial import the model in 2.81 looks like (notice the "invisible portions of the mesh"...

The body mesh in Edit mode in 2.81 shows transparent sections of the mesh as seen here. Note the transparent sections are somewhat arbitrary (e.g. one side of the chest, the hands, and holes in the legs) ...

I have been observing this with *many* FBX files from many sources for this particular project I'm working on.

I fear that this may be an Eevee problem and not an FBX import problem. Below are the .blend files saved from the 2.80 import and the 2.81 import. Reading either of these files into 2.80 results in a mesh that displays properly. Reading either of these files into 2.81 results in a mesh that doesn't display properly. This makes me suspect an Eevee problem or perhaps an FBX import problem that is revealed only with new features of Eevee.

Event Timeline

I now suspect this problem is not specific to FBX import. I am observing very similar symptoms with opening or appending content from old .blend files. For example, this old asset (blender 2.63) from blendswap (CC-BY credit to Muhamed Zeid). It opens properly in 2.80 but exhibits the same "invisible/transparent" behavior in 2.81.

Here's how it looks in 2.80...

And here's how it looks in 2.81...

Also 2.81 in edit mode,, all vertices selected, and face normals displayed. The "invisible" faces display as transparent in edit mode.

I imported your WFP-Run model and it showed up correctly. No transparent parts of the mesh, Not in Cycles , Eevee, or edit mode. Using todays build. Windows 10

I think this has more to do with T70106: Objects with multiple materials are not displaying correctly - transparent faces.
So it more related to multi-material objects then it is to the FBX Addon...

@Chuck Ocheret (smart61): you are also on MacOS, right?

Will merge this report into T70106, lets continue discussion there.
(also feel free to comment here again if it is really only specific to the FBX Addon...)