Blender is an open source suite for 3D modelling, sculpting,
animation, compositing, rendering, preparation of assets for its own
game engine and exporting to others, etc. .blend
is its own binary
format that saves whole state of suite: current scene, animations,
all software settings, extensions, etc.
Internally, .blend format is a hybrid semi-self-descriptive
format. On top level, it contains a simple header and a sequence of
file blocks, which more or less follow typical TLV
pattern. Pre-last
block would be a structure with code DNA1
, which is a essentially
a machine-readable schema of all other structures used in this file.
This page hosts a formal specification of .blend file format of Blender using Kaitai Struct. This specification can be automatically translated into a variety of programming languages to get a parsing library.
meta:
id: blender_blend
application: Blender
file-extension: blend
xref:
justsolve: BLEND
mime: application/x-blender
pronom:
- fmt/902
- fmt/903
wikidata: Q15671948
license: CC0-1.0
endian: le
doc: |
Blender is an open source suite for 3D modelling, sculpting,
animation, compositing, rendering, preparation of assets for its own
game engine and exporting to others, etc. `.blend` is its own binary
format that saves whole state of suite: current scene, animations,
all software settings, extensions, etc.
Internally, .blend format is a hybrid semi-self-descriptive
format. On top level, it contains a simple header and a sequence of
file blocks, which more or less follow typical [TLV
pattern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type-length-value). Pre-last
block would be a structure with code `DNA1`, which is a essentially
a machine-readable schema of all other structures used in this file.
seq:
- id: hdr
type: header
- id: blocks
type: file_block
repeat: eos
instances:
sdna_structs:
value: 'blocks[blocks.size - 2].body.as<dna1_body>.structs'
types:
header:
seq:
- id: magic
contents: BLENDER
- id: ptr_size_id
type: u1
enum: ptr_size
doc: Size of a pointer; all pointers in the file are stored in this format
- id: endian
type: u1
doc: Type of byte ordering used
enum: endian
- id: version
type: str
size: 3
encoding: ASCII
doc: Blender version used to save this file
instances:
psize:
value: 'ptr_size_id == ptr_size::bits_64 ? 8 : 4'
doc: Number of bytes that a pointer occupies
file_block:
seq:
- id: code
type: str
size: 4
encoding: ASCII
doc: Identifier of the file block
- id: len_body
type: u4
doc: Total length of the data after the header of file block
- id: mem_addr
size: _root.hdr.psize
doc: Memory address the structure was located when written to disk
- id: sdna_index
type: u4
doc: Index of the SDNA structure
- id: count
type: u4
doc: Number of structure located in this file-block
- id: body
size: len_body
type:
switch-on: code
cases:
'"DNA1"': dna1_body
instances:
sdna_struct:
value: _root.sdna_structs[sdna_index]
if: sdna_index != 0
dna1_body:
doc: |
DNA1, also known as "Structure DNA", is a special block in
.blend file, which contains machine-readable specifications of
all other structures used in this .blend file.
Effectively, this block contains:
* a sequence of "names" (strings which represent field names)
* a sequence of "types" (strings which represent type name)
* a sequence of "type lengths"
* a sequence of "structs" (which describe contents of every
structure, referring to types and names by index)
doc-ref: 'https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Dev:Source/Architecture/File_Format/#Structure_DNA'
seq:
- id: id
contents: SDNA
- id: name_magic
contents: NAME
- id: num_names
type: u4
- id: names
type: strz
encoding: UTF-8
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_names
- id: padding_1
size: (4 - _io.pos) % 4
- id: type_magic
contents: TYPE
#align: 4 - https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct/issues/12
- id: num_types
type: u4
- id: types
type: strz
encoding: UTF-8
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_types
- id: padding_2
size: (4 - _io.pos) % 4
- id: tlen_magic
contents: TLEN
#align: 4 - https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct/issues/12
- id: lengths
type: u2
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_types
- id: padding_3
size: (4 - _io.pos) % 4
- id: strc_magic
contents: STRC
- id: num_structs
type: u4
- id: structs
type: dna_struct
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_structs
dna_struct:
doc: |
DNA struct contains a `type` (type name), which is specified as
an index in types table, and sequence of fields.
seq:
- id: idx_type
type: u2
- id: num_fields
type: u2
- id: fields
type: dna_field
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_fields
instances:
type:
value: _parent.types[idx_type]
dna_field:
seq:
- id: idx_type
type: u2
- id: idx_name
type: u2
instances:
type:
value: _parent._parent.types[idx_type]
name:
value: _parent._parent.names[idx_name]
enums:
ptr_size:
0x5f: bits_32
0x2d: bits_64
endian:
0x56: be
0x76: le