Convert GLB to OBJ — Edit Web3D Models in Any 3D Software

Quite a lot — this is one of the most lossy conversion directions, so it's worth understanding before you convert. What's lost completely: animations (OBJ is static — you get the rest pose), morph targets/blend shapes, scene hierarchy (parent-child relationships become a flat list of groups), normal maps, occlusion maps, emissive maps, and any non-standard glTF extensions. What's partially preserved: PBR base color becomes Phong diffuse, base color texture becomes map_Kd, roughness is approximated as inverted specular. What's fully preserved: geometry (vertices, faces, UVs), multi-object separation (as OBJ groups), and base color textures. If you need materials to look right, plan to spend 5-10 minutes reassigning materials after import.

Each object in the GLB becomes an OBJ group (denoted by "o ObjectName" lines in the file). When you import to Blender (File > Import > Wavefront .obj), you'll see all objects listed separately in the Outliner — which is usually what you want for editing. What's lost: parent-child relationships. If object A was a child of object B in the GLB (e.g., a wheel parented to a car body), the OBJ has them as separate, unrelated groups. You'll need to re-establish the hierarchy manually in Blender (select child, Ctrl+click parent, Ctrl+P > Object). Also lost: transform inheritance — each object's world-space position is baked in, so relative transforms are gone.

The .mtl file references texture images by filename (e.g., "map_Kd basecolor.png"). Three things to check: (1) Are the texture files in the same directory as the .obj and .mtl? The converter exports them alongside the OBJ — if you moved just the .obj, the textures got left behind. (2) Do the filenames match exactly? On macOS and Linux, "BaseColor.PNG" and "basecolor.png" are different files. Open the .mtl in a text editor and verify the map_Kd paths match your actual filenames. (3) Is the .mtl file present? Some file managers hide .mtl files — check with "ls -la" or show hidden files. If the .mtl is genuinely missing, the converter may not have found materials in the GLB (unlikely but possible if the GLB used extensions-only materials).

All three have native OBJ import. Maya: File > Import, select OBJ — materials appear in the Hypershade but may need reassignment since Maya's lambert/phong differs from the converted .mtl. Cinema 4D: File > Open or Merge, OBJ import is automatic — textures are usually found if they're in the same folder. 3ds Max: File > Import > Import, select OBJ — the import dialog lets you adjust scale and flip axes (GLB uses Y-up, 3ds Max uses Z-up by default). Common issue across all three: if the model appears rotated 90° or mirrored, it's a coordinate system mismatch. GLB uses right-handed Y-up. Maya matches this by default. 3ds Max and Cinema 4D use Z-up — apply a -90° X rotation after import.

For most workflows, neither — Blender imports GLB directly (File > Import > glTF 2.0), and this preserves everything: materials, hierarchy, animations, morph targets. Only convert to OBJ if: (1) your target software doesn't support GLB/glTF (some older CAD tools, ZBrush versions before 2023), (2) you need the OBJ for a pipeline that specifically requires it (some game engine importers), or (3) you want to merge the GLB into a larger OBJ-based project. If you do need an intermediate format and care about animations, FBX preserves more data than OBJ — but you'll need Blender as the middleman (import GLB into Blender, export FBX).

Yes — often 2-5x larger. GLB uses binary geometry encoding and optional Draco compression. OBJ uses text-based vertex/face lists where every coordinate is written as decimal text ("v 1.234567 2.345678 3.456789\n"). A Draco-compressed 1 MB GLB can easily become a 5 MB OBJ. Even without Draco, binary-to-text expansion alone adds ~50-100%. This doesn't affect editing (disk is cheap), but if you need to send the file to someone, ZIP it first — text-based OBJ compresses very well (typically 60-70% reduction with ZIP).