Firestorm allows objects (linksets) to be saved to your hard drive (exported), and brought back into SL (imported), with restrictions to prevent content theft.

The purpose of export/import is to allow you to create backups of your creations on your own system, in case of SL inventory loss, or to allow you to transfer your created items to other grids.

• Exported objects must belong to you, and all parts made by you or export will fail.
• All textures on the object must be in your inventory, and be made by you. This includes sculpt maps.
• Any items contained inside the object (eg, scripts, notecards, etc) must also be made by you.

Detailed export rules are given on this page.

Objects can be exported as a Firestorm backup file, or as Collada mesh.

To export an object to your hard drive, right click it and select Save As from the menu. Then select:

• Collada
• Backup

A window opens, showing the properties of the item, and giving a few options:

• Save textures: Enable this if you wish to save the textures which are applied to the object.
  Note that this will be greyed out if you are not allowed to export the textures.
• Consolidate textures: If enabled, combines multiple faces having the same texture, into a single material. Otherwise, each prim face will have a unique material identifier. (Remember that SL mesh import only supports a maximum of 8 materials when importing.)
• Skip Transparent: Ignore (do not export) any faes what are set to transparent.
• Apply texture params: When exporting, preserve any special texture paramaters (such as repeats, rotation, offset, etc).
• Texture format: use the dropdown to select the image format to use for saved textures - if any.

Click the Save as… button to export. A file picker will open, allowing you to select the destination folder and file name.

A window opens, summarizing the obejct to be exported. You have the option to:

• Backup object contents to disk: If enabled, items contined in the object will be exported as well, if permissions allow.

Click Save as… to export the object. A file selector window will open, allowing you to select the destination folder and file name.

A file picker window will open, where you can select the folder in which you wish to save the file.

Note that it is possible to export a worn attachment.

This is done via normal mesh upload: top menu, Build → Upload → Mesh Model, or top menu, Avatar → Upload → Mesh Model. See this page for more information.

To start importing, go to the top menu, Build → Upload → Import Linkset. The Import window opens. First click on the Choose File button, which opens the file picker window so you can browse to the file you wish to import.

Once the file has been selected, you can specify import options:

• Do not attach object: Enable this if you do not wish to automatically wear objects that were exported while worn.
• Restore Region Position: Create the imported object at the same region coordinates at which it was exported.
• Upload: Upload any associated textures as well; this has a L$10 cost per texture, unless you enable…

Click the Import button to start the import. The object will be created near you - unless you are importing an attachment, in which case it will automatically attach once created.