Blender design import advice please

[xxqpxx--PMW]

I am stoked to be modeling the first ship for my new empire using Blender. Is there a thread or tutorial I may have missed that covers the rest of the learning curve/wall beyond this point? 

[QuakeIV]

I think you can just save it as a 3ds and then import it as a mesh

[martianant]

Export as 3ds, then import. I actually suggest doing the UV unwrapping and texture creation using Blender if you can. It's a lot nicer than the Hazeron designer. I'd also suggest you do as much modeling work in Blender as you can, I promise it'll make your life so much easier and make design work so much faster.

[Athena]

What empire?

[Vectorus]

Nice ship! I am planning to make a few videos to help with this. Here are some tips:

1. The main point is USE BLENDER 2.79! Higher versions cannot export .3ds and there are no plugins to enable it. The .stl format is much worse for Hazeron's designer, because it cannot export multiple objects in one file, and the UV mapping I think is not as reliable.
   
2. Make sure you have applied Location, Rotation and Scale before exporting.
   
3. As martianant advised, do your unwrapping and texturing in blender.
   
4. Colour your objects in blender. Select an object. Then use "p > Separate by Material" to make each colour into a new sub-object. Export to Hazeron and paint the whole object without having to fiddle with individual faces.
   
5. You can even do all same-coloured faces in your design all at once. Separate multiple objects by material. Export the resulting same-coloured objects together (first red, then blue etc.). Import to Hazeron. Select the objects (which will have the newest part numbers), go into edit mode and paint all the objects at once.
   
6.  Similar idea applies for textures or part types (hull, rooms). Import them all at once as a .3ds and use Hazeron's edit mode to do the whole operation at once.
   
7. Some parts do not appear on the "make" menu, like room voids and barriers. But you can still import them from blender. Import the room void shape as a mesh. Go to Parts > Room Void. Whip up a triangle far away from your design. Go into edit mode. Select the room void mesh geometry. Cut and paste it into the placeholder room void. Delete the superfluous triangle. Done.
   
8. You can place path nodes, citizen posts or anything else using guides made in blender. Make triangles in blender with one corner where you want the part to go. Combine them all into one object. Import the object to Hazeron. Go into isolated edit mode, enable vertex snapping and spam path nodes or whatever onto the guide corners. Delete the guide mesh. Done.
   

Will add more as I think of them.