Yes, Collada is a fine alternative format very similar to FBX.
If you ask me then I would like to have much wider support for Collada. FBX is becoming an Autodesk format more and more. All the support for XSI, Lightwave and so on is gone. Currently Autodesk only offers FBX for Maya and Max. So I am not sure what happens to this file format in the future.
Collada is free from that. It should become the real alternative for engines and modelling applications. But unfortunately not every software supports it currently. I did not find a plugin for Lightwave as an example.
Here are some more details about Collada.
software that supports collada:
https://collada.org/mediawiki/index.php/List_of_products_that_support_COLLADAThe COLLADA 1.4.x feature set includes:
- Mesh Geometry
- Transform hierarchy (rotation, translation, shear, scale, matrix)
- Effects
- Shaders (Cg, GLSL, GLES)
- Materials
- Textures
- Lights
- Cameras
- Skinning
- Animation
- Physics (rigid bodies, constraints, rag dolls, collision, volumes)
- Instancing
- Techniques
- Multirepresentations
- Assets
- User data
As you can see one could save complete levels, animations or even cut-scenes in Collada-format.
