Model Viewer for MD3?

Post by **Enjay** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 14:57

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good model viewer for the MD3 format?

I've Googled until my eyes bled and downloaded a few little applications - most of which simply didn't work. The best I've managed to find is Ken Silverman's MDView, but it is basic in the extreme. I only want something that can give me an idea of what the model looks like and, importantly for setting up models in GZdoom, tell me what the frame names are. Currently I'm opening models in a Hex editor and trying to guess which string is a frame name: sometimes obvious, sometimes not.

Thanks

Post by **Enjay** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 16:18

OK, I got some of the way. I can load models into Quark.

There's one simple model I want to modify now. All I need to do is rotate ti by 180 degrees. I'd also like to save it as an MD2. I've tried in Quark, but when I do, any skin information I have for it gets lost and the other tools I have (q2mdlr9b and QME) have real problems with it, can't save it and sometimes give me a "divide by zero" error.

Is anyone able to convert this MD3 to MD2 for me? It's very simple. Just a little satellite dish from the Duke Nukem Hi-Res pack. Once I have it in MD2 format, with its skin information intact I can do what I like with it. I haven't figured out how to add new vertexes to models in q2mdlr yet, but I'm getting pretty reasonable at moving existing models around and changing their shape.

If anyone thinks they can help, I can easily send them the file.

TheDarkArchon · Post by **TheDarkArchon** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:57

If this is for GZDoom, you can just leave it in the MD3 format.

YouTube · Post by **Nash** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:02

I'm guessing as per this, the latest versions of Quark have problems saving into MD2s. As Cheapy mentioned in that post, try Quark 5 (if that's available).

Why don't you just use the MD3 format directly? GZDoom supports it, and you don't have to mess with frame names, that's what the frameindex keyword in MODELDEFS is for.

You also don't have to worry about wobbly vertices (don't even get me started...).

Post by **Enjay** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 13:17

The reason I want to convert it is because I am using q2mdlr9b to edit the models that I'm using slightly. And it doesn't handle MD3s.

I can't find a program that edits MD3s. If I could (providing it was simple - this modeling stuff is bloody complicated to a 2.5D map editor used to pixelated sprites

) then I'd use it. There just doesn't seem to be a range of editing programs available for models in the way that there is for, say, graphics. With graphic you can download any number of tools that can read a whole array of formats and save them just as easily. With models, you have to convert back and forth and put up with a bunch of clunky interfaces that aren't standardised in any way. What's more, being a modeling n00b, it's all pretty complicated to me and I don't know what half the terms in the menus etc even mean. When I press buttons, half the time nothing happens and the other half something totally unwanted and often disastrous happens instead. I mean, half the programs I tried have a help menu, but no help file

. And all I'm trying to do is shove a few vertices around!

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying messing with these things and I think they do have some really interesting possibilities - and I'm not talking about wholesale replacement of sprites or anything - and when it works, it's amazingly easy to import a model, write some decorate for it and have it work - but it can also be very, very frustrating at times.

BTW, It was the latest Quark that I downloaded yesterday. It can't save MD3s, lost the skin info when I saved it as an MD2 and caused other programs not to recognise the MD2 at all. I'll see if I can get ver5 to see if that helps. [edit] got it and it doesn't support loading of MD3s

[/edit]

YouTube · Post by **Nash** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 18:47

Unfortunately, the only free modeling tools that support MD3s are not lightweight programs.

q2mdlr's UI is nothing compared to the other stuff out there.

Milkshape 3D is IMO the best bang for the buck because it natively supports MD2 and MD3 exporting, and it's modeling tools are decent for 25 bucks. But I grew out of it because it just isn't powerful enough for me anymore.

If you are considering getting semi-serious into modeling and want a freeware tool to work on, a lot of people recommend Blender because once you get past the learning curve, it has (almost) all of the modeling tools you could ever want, and they are on par with the bigger boys like 3ds Max. It has MD2 and MD3 exporters.

I can do the conversion for you if you want... just PM me the stuff. I'll be your "converting program".

Post by **Enjay** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 19:09

Okay, I tried Blender and it didn't have a MD3 import/export "out of the box". Also, when I tried to load an MD2, it gave me some errors at the console.

I DL'd Milkshape and it does seem pretty good, and reasonably straight forward (well, pretty complex actually, but everything is relative). At $25, it's hardly going to break the bank so it might be worth buying a copy if I do get into this at all. I have already come across a problem though. It can certainly load my MD3, but I can't figure out how to get it to load the skin that comes with it. Also, when I try and export it as an MD2, I get "found vertices with no bone. No animations are exported". Frankly, I haven't got a clue what that means.

Aaaanyway, I'd still like to see if I can get it into MD2 format, just to see what difference that would make (so a clue as to what that error means would be good) but I did manage to edit the model and, despite the fact I couldn't see any skin information in Milkshape, when I exported the model as an MD3 and loaded it up, it looked exactly as I wanted.

YouTube · Post by **Nash** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 20:51

You have to assign a material to your model to see the texture.

Select all (CTRL + A), then go to the Materials tab. Click "New". You will see two buttons "<none>" on them. Click the top one, and browse to your texture. Now hit "Assign" (be sure all the meshes are selected; they should be in red in all the viewports. Otherwise select all again before hitting Assign).

Now right-click on the 3-d viewport (the one with the blue background) and choose "Textured".

To export to MD2, browse to your Milkshape 3D installation folder and look for a file called md2.qc. Copy this file into the same folder as your model.

Post by **Enjay** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 21:01

Cool, I got the texture thing working.

However, even with the md2.qc file in my model folder, I still get the "no bones" message when trying to export it as an MD2, and thus no file is exported.

[edit] I found the solution here
http://forums.newdoom.com/archive/index ... 24810.html

Basically, create a single bone and apply all the vertices to it. [/edit]

YouTube · Post by **Nash** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 21:18

I see. I wouldn't know, I've never animated an MD2 before (I hate the format).

MD3 export in MS3D doesn't require a bone. I've exported several static props to the MD3 format in the past.

Post by **Enjay** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 21:37

Funy thing is, this model isn't animated as far as I can tell. It's just a static object that sits there doing nothing with only one frame. However, when Milkshape exported it, it created frames in the MD2 for all the player default states - run, walk, etc (all identical of course).

Now that I've seen it in MD2 format though, I'm starting to appreciate some of the limitations of the format. Simply getting the skin to fit and not show back lines on the model (where previously there were none) is a pain. An interesting exercise though.

YouTube · Post by **Nash** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 11:09

For me the biggest problem with the MD2 format is that it compresses the vertex coordinates into single bytes, so a lot of accuracy is lost. This is what causes the wobbly/swimmy vertices during animation. This isn't good even for static objects because when you convert your model to MD2, the geometry will be different than your original model because the vertices would have been scaled down. For complex static objects with small details this can be disastrous.

EDIT: The reason why your MD2 has all the default player animations created upon export is because they are defined in md2.qc.

md2.qc is a way for you to name your frames so that game engines can reference them by name.

Post by **Enjay** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:42

The inaccuracy is presumably what causes the slight misalignment of the skin. I'll also look at the md2.qc file too and see if I can customise it. Seeing as how I'm only doing simple stuff, a full set of animations isn't required. Milkshape does seem very good though. I'll probably register it. Thanks for all the help.

DaniJ · Post by **DaniJ** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 21:56

A hugely useful tool for models which I found years ago is explor3D, it allows visualization (and conversion) for countless model formats including MD3 and MD2.

Post by **Enjay** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:13

That is a cool program - and frustrating. I can only find versions with the menues and dialogues in a non-english character set so there is a lot of guesswork involved. Seeing as how it isn't just a simple program, it's easy to do something and not know what it was.

Is there an english version that you know of?