Arma 3 Object Builder
Tutorials
A set of videos are available on YouTube to serve as an introduction to the more important features.
About the add-on
The Arma 3 Object Builder add-on aims to be an effective and reliable tool for modders of the Arma 3 game. It ships a wide variety of 3D authoring tools for models and animations to bring content into the engine of Arma 3, all with a UI that is in-line with the core design of Blender.
Main Features
The add-on comes with a wide range of added features. Some of the more important ones are as follows:
- Import-Export
- P3D (MLOD)
- RTM (Plain, BMTR)
- ASC
- armature reconstruction
- Tools
- vertex mass editing
- hit point cloud creation
- proxy model management
- LOD validation
- rigging utilities
- Utility Functions
- convexity checks
- vertex group utilities
- face ordering utilities
Documentation
The documentation can be found on GitBook. As the add-on changes, the documentation will be updated.
Requirements and Compatibility
- Blender v2.90.0 or higher
- Arma 3 Tools (optional for some features to work)
The add-on is developed on Blender v2.90.0 for convenience reasons, which also has the side effect that it supports older versions, not just the latest releases. The add-on is tested on newer releases regardless. If a new release of Blender in the future renders it impossible to keep the add-on compatible with both old, and new releases, support will be dropped for legacy versions in favor of the new API.
The range of Blender releases tested for compatibility is indicated in the changelog entry of each packed release of the add-on.
Background
Arma 3 Object Builder borrows its name from the infamous Object Builder application that's used for importing models to the P3D model format of Arma 3. While Object Builder bares some modelling functionality, it's by no means adequate by today's standards. Because of this the need arose for an alternative, that resulted in the creation of the ArmAToolbox add-on by Alwarren, which makes it possible to import and export animations and models to the Arma 3 file formats directly.
The Arma 3 Object Builder add-on is designed as a successor/reimplementation of the code and workflow of the ArmaToolbox.
What's New
2.5.1 April 23rd, 2025
Tested compatibility: Blender 2.90 -> 4.4
Fixed
- Face and vertex flag groups were not properly handled in some cases
- The disabled "Preserve Preprocessed LOD Objects" option was not respected if an error occured during export
Tried like 30 .p3d files only script errors :/ I hate to leave bad reviews, will change if it gets updated...Blender 4.3 here, cant select that also in Version drop-down... Python: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users********\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3\extensions\blender_org\Arma3ObjectBuilder\ui\import_export_p3d.py", line 101, in execute lod_objects = import_p3d.read_file(self, context, file) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "C:\Users*******\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3\extensions\blender_org\Arma3ObjectBuilder\io\import_p3d.py", line 432, in read_file mlod = p3d.P3D_MLOD.read(file, operator.first_lod_only) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "C:\Users******\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3\extensions\blender_org\Arma3ObjectBuilder\io\data_p3d.py", line 778, in read raise P3D_Error("Invalid MLOD signature: %s" % str(signature)) bl_ext.blender_org.Arma3ObjectBuilder.io.data_p3d.P3D_Error: P3D - Invalid MLOD signature: b'clas'
thank you, very good addon