Exporting from Blender for a virtual tabletop
Blender is the free way to fix almost anything about a 3D model before it hits the table — paint colour onto a colourless STL, rig a static mesh, clean up a scan. Getting the result onto a virtual tabletop comes down to one export choice more than any other.
· 5 min read · TerrainTale
Export as glTF Binary (.glb)
glTF Binary (.glb) is the standard web 3D format and the most direct path from Blender to the table — it carries mesh, materials and textures in a single file, and it's one of the formats that imports as-is, alongside .gltf, .obj, .fbx, .stl, .ply, .dae, .3mf, .usdz and more. Blender's built-in glTF exporter handles this without a plugin.
The case this actually solves: colour
The clearest reason to route a model through Blender before importing is colour. An STL, for instance, carries shape but no colour at all — imported directly, it gets a neutral grey material. Opening it in Blender, painting it or assigning materials, and exporting as glTF Binary (.glb) instead is how a colourless print file becomes a model that actually looks like the thing it's meant to be, rather than a grey silhouette of it.
What you don't need to do yourself
Decimating the mesh, baking down textures, manually optimizing triangle count for real-time use — none of that is necessary before export. Everything imported is converted to a GLB and simplified to the detail budget set in Settings (triangle count and texture size) automatically on the way in, and can be reduced further from its own menu afterward. Export at whatever quality Blender gives you and let the import step handle the rest.
Rigging and animation
A static mesh exported from Blender works fine as a prop, terrain piece, or mini — it just won't idle or animate on the table unless it carries an actual rig and animation exported with it. The library's own KayKit characters are the ones built and exported that way; a plain export of a sculpted or modelled mesh is static, and that's completely normal for most props and one-off minis.
Blender's glTF exporter does carry armatures and actions across when a model has them, so a rigged and animated character built or edited in Blender can bring its animation with it. For a one-off boss or NPC, though, a static export is usually the pragmatic choice — rigging and animating a character well is a meaningfully bigger project than exporting a static mesh, and a stationary mini reads perfectly well at the table regardless.
A typical workflow: STL to a coloured mini
The most common reason to touch Blender at all in this pipeline is a purchased or printed STL that needs colour it doesn't have. Import the STL into Blender, assign materials or paint directly onto the mesh in Blender's paint mode, then export as glTF Binary (.glb) — the exporter carries the materials across, so the result isn't the flat grey the STL would otherwise get on import. It's a slower path than dropping a file straight on the window, but it's the one that turns a print-only file into a model that looks finished on the table.
For anyone new to Blender, this specific task — assign materials, export glTF — doesn't require learning the rest of the program; it's a handful of clicks once you know which two things to do.