The following 4 steps to adding a new image format to blender, its probably easiest to look at the png code for a clean clear example, animation formats are a bit more complicated but very similar: Step 1: create a new file named after the format for example lets say we were creating an openexr read/writer use openexr.c It should contain functions to match the following prototypes: struct ImBuf *imb_loadopenexr(unsigned char *mem,int size,int flags); /* Use one of the following depending on whats easyer for your file format */ short imb_saveopenexr(struct ImBuf *ibuf, FILE myfile, int flags); short imb_saveopenexr(struct ImBuf *ibuf, char *myfile, int flags); /* Used to test if its the correct format int IMB_is_openexr(void *buf); Step 2: Add your hooks to read and write the image format these go in writeimage.c and readimage.c just look at how the others are done Step 3: Add in IS_openexr to blender/source/blender/imbuf/IMB_imbuf_types.h Step 4: Add any external library info to the build process.