Hi there,
I would recommend you this Website from @voxel_pirate and look up his threads here (e.g. this(1) or this(2)) He is doing an addon for blender to make animation easier for Stonehearth.
But otherwise i can tell you, because i dived into blender and animating the models with it, it is as you called it… a shitload of work. But if you like blender and want to have fun with it…just do it 