Extract text from Blender cache files (BPHYS)
To convert BPHYS cache files to another format, you need Blender or other 3D software.
To convert other file formats to the "Physics Cache File" file type, you need software like Blender or a similar tool.
A .bphys file stores baked physics data for Blender. Animators use it to save the results of heavy calculations for cloth, fluids, smoke, and particles. Instead of calculating the physics on every playback frame, Blender reads the saved mathematical point data from the .bphys cache sequence.
The main disadvantage of this format is its proprietary nature. It is heavily tied to the specific version of Blender and the internal physics engine used at the time of creation. Files frequently exceed 100MB per frame, meaning a single high-resolution fluid simulation can consume hundreds of gigabytes of disk space. Furthermore, you cannot simply drag a .bphys file into a web browser, a standard video editor, or a game engine. It requires the original 3D environment to be visualized.
Users usually need to convert this data to move simulations into other pipelines, like Unreal Engine or Autodesk Maya. The best target formats are ABC (Alembic) for animated geometry and particles, or VDB (OpenVDB) for volumetric data like smoke and fire. Converting to OBJ or FBX is possible, but you will often lose complex volumetric properties or continuous vertex animations.
Because this is a closed, engine-specific cache format, standard online converters fail completely. They do not have the 3D rendering engine required to parse the raw point and vector data. Often, only the original software can properly read or export the data. For full conversion, you must open the source project in Blender and export the simulation to an industry-standard interchange format.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BPHYS file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert BPHYS file to OBJ, FBX, DAE, 3DS, MAX, BLEND, MA, MB, C4D, STL, PLY or WRL, you can use Blender or similar software from the "Physics Simulation Data Cache" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DWG, DAE, X3D, IGES, WRL, JT, SKP, 3DS, 3DM, OBJ, STEP or FBX files to BPHYS, try Blender or another comparable tool in the "Physics Simulation Data Cache" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our BPHYS converter.