Blender3D is an excellent free-software application that is well suited to deliver models and animations needed for any game development project. Incorporating Blender3D authored resources is done via the Drag[en]gine Exporter.

The Drag[en]gine Exporter is a Python script composed of multiple export modules that produce the XML formats that are most suitable for the map editor. The choice of XML here means that you can post process any resources, before importing into the map editor or even write your own exporters for functionality not covered by the engine.

The following file formats can be exported:

• Models in the *.demodel format describe model geometry, bone weighting information, edge creasing, textures (materials), texture coordinates and LODs.
• Animations in the *.deanim format describe Actions which are not flagged invisible. Each Action is exported as one move with the same name. For each bone, the position, rotation and size are saved per keyframe. There is no need to align keyframes of all bones as the engine works such details out for you. The playtime is considered from frame 1 up to the last keyframe placed in the Action. A frame rate of 50 frames per second is assumed. Later versions of the script will allow you to alter this value.
• Rigs in the *.derig format describe the bone structure and bone relationships including physical properties which Blender3D does not typically handle.
• Occlusion Meshes in the *.deoccmesh format describe similar information to .demodel but exports only model geometry and bone weighting.
• Navigation Spaces in the *.denavspace format describe similar information to .demodel but exports only model geometry.

Resources exported from Blender3D in these formats can be used immediatelyby the game engine.

The addon scripts can be installed using the typical Blender3D workflow for installing addons.

You can download the zip file from: https://github.com/LordOfDragons/dragengine/releases/latest, file blender-addon-dragengine-*.zip where * is the version number.

Click the “Install” button and select the plugin zip file.

Once the plugins are installed the list shows the plugin. Click the check box to activate the plugin.

Now various panels are added to Blender3D's views and properties with the title “Drag[en]gine”. To export resources find the “Drag[en]gine Resources” sub menu in the File→Export menu.

Example blend files can be found in the Drag[en]gine Example Projects repository. For a more complete example, look in the Example Application.