A free Blender add-on for importing, exporting and editing the model, animation and terrain formats used by DayZ.

DayZ Object Builder (DZOB) brings the Bohemia Interactive content pipeline into Blender: open a binarized model straight from the game, edit it, and export it back — without leaving the viewport.

It is a DayZ-focused fork of Arma 3 Object Builder by MrClock, adapted and extended specifically for the DayZ modding workflow.

All entries are grouped under a single DayZ submenu in File ▸ Import / File ▸ Export.

• Auto LODs Generator — one-click Resolution / Geometry / Memory / Fire Geometry / View Geometry LODs, with the expected names, properties and collection layout
• DayZ character master rig — a bundled, animation-ready rig added straight from the Add menu
• Live proxy editing — proxies shown in place as non-selectable preview meshes
• DayZ Tools integration — binarized model.cfg handled through DayZ Tools' CfgConvert
• DayZ presets: proxies, penetration materials, and the DayzTemporarySkeleton rigging skeleton
• Armature reconstruction
• Texture set auto-search across a mod root
• Proxy, mass, hit point, rigging and validation tools
• Assorted utility functions and scripts

This feature exists for reference, not for extraction. It was added for two concrete jobs:

• Reading proxy placement. Seeing how existing models position and orient their proxies, so your own attachment points line up the way the engine actually expects.
• Fitting clothing to the DayZ character. Checking a garment against the real body proportions, and against the other clothing it has to layer with, so a vest sits correctly over a shirt instead of clipping through it.

Look at the reference, then build your own asset. That is the workflow this was written for, and the one I would ask you to stay inside.

• Windows long path support. Paths over the 260 character MAX_PATH limit are opened through the extended-length API. Unpacked game asset trees routinely exceed it, especially once the temporary suffix is appended during export.
• Import and export errors are reported, not raised. Failures surface as an operator error with the traceback in the system console, instead of an unhandled Blender popup.
• Texture and RVMAT auto-search. Point the add-on at a mod root and it resolves the face texture and bound RVMAT for a material from its Base Color image. RVMAT candidates are ranked by whether they actually reference the resolved .paa, so sets whose normal map is named differently from the color map still match.
• Binarized (ODOL) P3D import. Binarized models open directly through the normal P3D import, with no external debinarizer. Conversion is lossy and one way: the add-on never writes ODOL, and a re-exported model is degraded relative to the original source. It is meant for reference work — see Using ODOL import responsibly.
• Native Enfusion format support. .xob models and .anm animations are read directly, and .anm can be written back out — so an animation retargeted onto the DayZ rig in Blender can be taken back into the game. Both readers were validated against DayZATool's output.
• DayZ instead of Arma 3 throughout. Arma-only RTM/BMTR animation support is gone, the Arma 3 Tools integration is now DayZ Tools, and the bundled presets (proxies, penetration materials, rigging skeleton) point at the DayZ data set.
• LOD generation built in. The formerly separate DayZ LOD Tools add-on is merged in as the Auto LODs Generator, so it no longer has to bridge back into this add-on from the outside.

• Blender v4.4.0 or higher
• DayZ Tools — optional, required for some features

The upstream add-on targets Blender v2.90.0 and stays compatible with older releases. This fork cannot: the .anm animation import and export are built on the slotted action API (fcurve_ensure_for_datablock), which only exists from Blender v4.4.0 onwards. Development happens on the current release.

Download a packaged release, or clone this repository and pack the DZObjectBuilder/ folder manually. See the official Blender documentation on installing add-ons.

That same decision is what keeps existing .blend files working: the model metadata on your objects is stored under the upstream property names, and renaming those would silently drop it. The operator and panel identifiers, by contrast, have been renamed to the DZOB namespace.

Because this fork stays close to upstream in workflow, properties and panel layout, MrClock's documentation on GitBook still describes most of this add-on accurately. Features specific to this fork are documented above; per-version changes are in the release notes.

The lineage of this add-on:

• ArmAToolbox by Hans-Joerg "Alwarren" Frieden — the original Blender add-on for the Bohemia Interactive engine formats.
• Arma 3 Object Builder by MrClock — a reimplementation of a similar workflow with extended features and an interface closer to Blender's design. This fork's direct parent, and the source of nearly all of its code.
• DayZ Object Builder — this fork.

The name goes back to the Object Builder application shipped by Bohemia Interactive, whose modelling functionality the Blender add-ons set out to replace.

As inherited from ArmAToolbox and Arma 3 Object Builder, DayZ Object Builder is released under the GNU General Public License version 3.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see the GNU licenses.

Files created using this software are not covered by this license.