On one hand I have had a lot of issues with FBX on the other hand I suppose that FBX should have some advantage over the simple file formats, for the simple reason that all the modern engines are supporting it ( or Collada )
But what ?
With FBX you can export out the geometry, multiple UV maps per object (and per scene), all textures (where they go with each piece of geometry, etc), various types of lights, cameras, bones, animations and more.
Basically, you could create an entire level (geometry, a UV map for textures, a UV map for light/shadow maps, lights (if needed), animations, etc) and export it as one FBX file and then import that into your engine of choice (if properly supported by the engine/importer). This cannot be done with obsolete file formats like 3DS or even with the more modern OBJ format. This allows the end-user to work completely in one 3D package to create just about everything they need (levels, entities, etc) and export to their engine of choice.
3DS is extremely limited. Here is a list someone compiled for the shortcomings of the 3DS format:
Official 3DS shortcoming list:
* All meshes must be triangles.
* All texture filenames are limited to the 8.3 DOS format.
* The number of vertices and polygons per mesh is limited to 65536.
* Accurate vertex normals cannot be stored in the .3ds file. Instead "smoothing groups" are used so that the receiving program can recreate a (hopefully good) representation of the vertex normals. This is still a hold-over legacy for many animation programs today which started in the 1980's (3DS MAX, Lightwave and trueSpace still use smoothing groups, and Maya up to v2.51).
* Object names are limited to 10 characters. Material names are limited to 16 characters.
* Directional light sources are not supported.
The OBJ format has limits two. The one that gets me is the limit of only one UV map for the entire OBJ file. So if you have multiple objects created, each has to be exported as its own OBJ. If you have one object with more than one UV map (such as a piece with one UV for the texture and one for the light/shadow map) then you simply cannot use the OBJ format. The geometry will export, but if there is more than one UV map, then the object will export without any UVs at all.
A file format like FBX has none of these limitations. So the artist can freely create his scene and export it all into one file for use in the game engine.
