Got the brilliantly named Assimp library working, so I can now import every 3D file format known to man. I'm not a big fan of the high poly-count models seen in some other blocky games, but this axe just happened to be one of the example files, so I grabbed that one for testing.
The standard renderer that comes with the library uses direct calls. The axe model has tens of thousands of triangles, so it's a miracle I'm still getting 30 FPS. So the next step would be to look for/create a proper VBO-based renderer, and get skeletal animations working (for mobs and players).
