glTF

Older formats such as FBX and COLLADA carry everything a modelling package might conceivably want, and every importer has to parse and convert. glTF goes the other way: a JSON file describes scenes, meshes, materials and animations, while vertex data sits in binary buffers laid out so they can be handed straight to the GPU. The .glb variant packs the lot into a single file.

Version 1.0 arrived in 2015 and 2.0 in 2017, adding PBR materials based on the metallic-roughness model. Khronos billed it as "the JPEG of 3D", and unlike most such slogans it turned out roughly true: the web, Godot and Blender all treat glTF as the first choice.