Is their a proper ogre exporter for blender 2.5 to export with animation and not just static models or is the original author still waiting for Blender 2.6 so that it is stable?
There is an Ogre exporter for Blender 2.5 but the XML resulting file is not compatible with jMonkey.
But if you use the nightly build, you can now load a Blender file directly !
I do know that the current Blender Plugin allows import of a blender file however if i remember correctly animations did not work properly
I can’t say fully because i’ve not used the blender loader with animations, but i think it should work. As for Ogre, JME only properly supports blender 2.49 exported ogre xml files.
what are the options for getting blender meshes & animations into JME3? I’d like to use Blender 2.5+ but I also want to be able to use my models! 
@kaffiene
may be you can model and paint the model in 2.5+
import the done model in 2.5 into 2.49b, create the bones (armatures) do the animation and exporting it from there
I did it like that (really a pain in ass :D,especially when you have a lot of animations )
that way you can use blender 2.5+(a little bit) and your model will be usable ^^
2.5 has good extension the the animation capabilities that would make my current project move much much faster in terms of the actual animating but I find the 2.5 way of setting up animations for the ogre exporter feels more cumbersome and time consuming, I understand the premise behind it but… lord have mercy 8O
When was the last time you guys actually tested the Blender Loader plugin? It’s constantly being updated, so if you could keep on testing it, delivering bug reports and feature requests to @Kaelthas (with public posts) that should considerably accelerate development, and you’d soon have your effortless Blender pipeline ready for you.
i use blender loader all the time for static objects, and it works like a charm. But i haven’t tried any animation yet and I will give feedback when i do :P, should be in a week or so
Excuse the newb question: but where is the blender loader plugin? I’m certainly willing to test it and provide some feedback.
I have the JME platform downloaded - is it part of that?
yeah no doubt the 2.5 feels a lot smoother and I’ve been also modeling and rigging my characters in blender 2.5 and animating in 2.4 which now jst feels like natural but it would still be nice to do everything in 2.5. On an excellent note Blender 2.59 is coming out sometimes this month so hopefully the original author of the ogre loader will update the script once all of the extra side projects has been added into blender
kaffiene said:
Excuse the newb question: but where is the blender loader plugin? I'm certainly willing to test it and provide some feedback.
I have the JME platform downloaded - is it part of that?
Go to Tools > Plugins and install the blender support plugin. You may need to download the nightly version of jmp as well, there is a checkbox in the settings panel for that.