Blender addon · 2021

Blender Ptero Tools

A Blender addon adding full support for Vietcong / Vietcong 2 (Ptero-Engine-II / Ptero-Engine-III) 3D formats which enables creation of custom 3D assets for both games.

While official tools existed, they were limited to outdated versions of 3ds Max (7/8) and lacked support for advanced workflows such as character creation, skeletal animation, and vehicle assets. In addition, the dependency on licensed software and plugins incompatible with modern versions made them impractical to use.

To overcome these limitations, I developed a complete Blender-based toolchain, enabling modern and more efficient asset workflows. The project involved extensive reverse engineering of proprietary file formats.

The addon supports complete import/export of engine formats, including skeletal meshes, animations, facial expressions, and equipment placement, while also exposing engine-specific configuration and material settings.

An animated equipped character imported into Blender

Even before full animation support was implemented, I used an early version of the addon to create Koppa (2020), likely the first map created entirely in Blender for Vietcong.

Availability

The tools were developed for personal use and were never publicly released.

Key features

Asset workflows

Objects and properties Engine-specific object configuration and asset properties
Characters and animation Support for skeletons, skeletal animation, and shape keys
Materials Full support for Ptero-Engine-II/III materials