I think adding .fbx support is the way to go.
You can export a .b3d and load that directly, but I think .fbx will be the best solution as an intermediate format.
You can export a .b3d and load that directly, but I think .fbx will be the best solution as an intermediate format.
If it will support the .fbx format (and retain its information for materials and animations), I'll buy the engine straight away. FBX is widely used, more then collada so far being the standard for motion capture, and I never had a problem with it, even when exporting animations and morphs (after all it was originally conceived for MotionBuilder).
A serious drawback however is the acquisition of Alias (.fbx developer) from Autodesk, which seemingly led to the lack of support for products not owned by them (such as XSI, which anyway incorporates it in version 6, and Lightwave, where the support is stuck at v8.2).
Exchange formats are an issue that Mark Sibly as well will have to address for his future works, since .b3d entirely relied on the userbase for the converters while an universal format would have solved this issue once and for all.
From here you can download the SDK (though you probably already know):
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=9873630&siteID=123112
Direct download: (FBX SDK 2006.11.1 for Windows)
http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx200611_1_fbxsdk_win_enu.exe