Zero-K uses 2 3D formats: .s3o and .dae
And 2-3 .dds textures per unit: 1)color + team color, 2)roughness + metallic + emission + boolean transparency and 3)normals(optional)
You can use Blender for 3D modelling. 4.5 and lower versions have native support for .dae and few plugins for .s3o
For textures you can use Gimp or Photoshop. Those also have plugins for .dds images
You can also check out this
https://springrts.com/wiki/3DModels:Textureshttps://zero-k.info/mediawiki/Blender_To_Zero-K