Skip to content

Blender 4.1: Import & Export

New File Handler API

File Handlers allow developers to extend traditional file "import" operators with drag-and-drop behavior throughout the Blender UI. (7c5fa8bf6c, 1254fee589)

Initial use of file handlers for drag-and-drop support has been enabled for the following file formats within the 3D Viewport and Outliner areas: Alembic, Collada, Grease Pencil SVG, OBJ, OpenUSD, PLY, and STL (d4bc3bd08d)

Support for additional formats, notably those that are implemented as Python addons, will be added in the future.

Python API examples are available in the documentation.

USD

  • New capabilities
    • Export armatures and shape keys (c6d61e8586).
    • Scene graph instancing import support (ea89e11e01).
    • Point instancing import support (fcd10ee33a).
    • Optionally author subdivision schema on export (5edda6cbcc).
    • Import can now be extended with Python scripts through hooks. See the USDHook API documentation for details and example code (ecbf3385c5).
  • Notable improvements
    • Export to a single root prim by default (b262655d39).
    • Author the extents property for lights on export (e6ff1348cb).
    • Add scale and bias processing for UsdUVTexture (f355b20262).
    • Add channel processing for UsdUVTexture (228ee8f1c3).

Alembic

  • Velocities on Points are now read (472cf44166).
  • Render resolution is now written to cameras (5412bd48a9).

STL

  • New STL (.stl) exporter (17c793e43c). The new exporter is written in C++ and is 3x-10x faster than the Python exporter.
  • Python STL exporter/importer add-on has been marked as legacy. Users of bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl / bpy.ops.import_mesh.stl are advised to switch to new STL exporter/importer functions bpy.ops.wm.stl_export / bpy.ops.wm.stl_import.

FBX

  • Normals are now exported as vertex normals when the Mesh.normals_domain property is 'POINT'. (3d823efc57)
  • Normals are now exported using the IndexToDirect FBX reference mode. (791b042c3a)
    • Older versions of the FBX I/O add-on do not support importing vertex normals with this reference mode, but will still import FBX I/O exported meshes with the correct normals because the vertex normals that cannot be imported will match the normals of the imported mesh. Custom normals won't be set in this case.

Stanford PLY

  • PLY importer and exporter now supports custom vertex attributes (0eb6aef3b0).

OBJ

  • Exporting completly flat or smooth shaded meshes can be up 20-40% faster (94ca3aea83).

3DS

  • Export auto smooth angle from ´Smooth by Angle ´modifier. (9a9142f160)

glTF 2.0

Find the changelog in the Add-ons section.