Doug,
FBX is quickly becoming the standard and many, many people are requesting it if their 3D app of choice does not already support it. MAX, MAYA and Modo (the three big "M"s) all have native FBX import/export capabilities. FBX carries with it geometry, materials, textures, lights, cameras, animation, bones, etc. So all your scene data can be exchanged between software apps.
Quote:
It looks good but I always worry about "free" tools from for profit companies
Yes, but OBJ, 3DS, X ... all of these are "free" formats made by "for profit" companies, so we end up in the same catch 22 no matter what 
.
Quote:
Yes. Also, there are SO MANY different packages that trying to supporting all of them would be foolish.
Neither should Conitec have to support all of them. This is why I did not like the suggesting of supporting COB and IFF to begin with. They are application specific file formats.
Quote:
We try to support the major ones with 3rd party tools, but they get outdated quickly.
Well, I don't think so. No one at Conitec has lifted a finger to support either 3D Studio MAX, Lightwave, Maya or any of the other modeling tools out there. All the plugins for both MAX and Lightwave were developed by people well outside of Conitec. I was even responsible for having the old MAX2MDL plugin updated from MAX 2.5 to both MAX 3 and 4. Someone else updated it for v6 and up of MAX. Greenbriar did the Lightwave plugin.
What support has Conitec actually given for the "major ones"? Hosting the files others have created on your site?
