My 5, 10, 20, 50 cents... trying to keep it simple but I still come off as a know it-all wanker
Quick3dDunno never used it to do anything to save md3 to mdl
qME Edit motion/frames? if you mean change/tweak the animation of the player model (for example) and save it out, then yes. But in qME you'll be moving vertices, tris & polys by hand frame by frame. This will be painful and probably no very efficient.
You can add extra frames, but the frames are set by progs.dat and qwprogs.dat by quake. So if you make a 8 frame run cycle, standard quake dm ,tf etc only uses a 6 frame run cycle. This new 8 frame run cycle will throw all the frames out of wack, with the extra 2 frames been part of the next animation.
Ie axrun has 6 frames, if you make it 8, the 7th and 8th frame will become the 1st and 2nd frame of rockrun, making the 1st and 2nd frame of rockrun the 3rd and 4th frame, etc, etc, etc
3ds maxEven if you do import all the separate frames of the player model (142) and create a morph for each frame in the right order, it still won't do you much good. Max has better keyboard commands and tools than qME, but you'll still be having to vertices, tris & polys by hand, frame by frame. This will still be painful and probably no very efficient.
What you want to do is import a frame of the player model and re-rig it to a skeleton in max, then animate it again to match the frames of the original player model. This way you can edit the frame you want on the fly quick and easy in max.
Making a modelbasically the making a player model goes like this (theres extra steps with creating a normal map from a high poly model)
a)model. You extrude, pull/push and cut your mesh up till you've got your finished model looking sexy, with the amount of polys you want.
b)unwrap/uvw map. You... eh unwrap the meshes uvw co-ordinates so you can paint a texture in photoshop. Its kinda virtual, like the original shape of the model stays the same its just how the vertices and polys are spread out on a flat plan. Like the way you skin a rabbit, deer or kangaroo and stretch its hide to dry in a frame.
c)painting the texure, you've got your uvw map rendered out at the size you want eg 512x512. bring into into photoshop as a layer and guide, paint away. You'll probably still be adjusting the uvw map as you go.
d)rig. This is the bit people don't seem to grasp
The models textured and stuff, now you rig it to skeleton so you can move it. This is done by creating a skeleton (nice and simple in max with biped) and positioning the skeleton so it matches the pose of your model. You then rig the mesh to the skeleton. Each bone in the skeleton will now have a envelope that controls how it effects the model.
You basically adjust the each bones envelopes so it only effects the part of the mesh you want, eg you shrink the forearms bones so it only effects the forearm.... riggings a very painful process or can be. The more bones you have the more envelopes, fingers, hands are the worst.
Take a leg, you've got the thigh and calf each with a envelope, the 2 envelopes overlap at the knee. The size and fall-off of the envelopes effect how the knee will deform when bent. You can do things like manually adjust the weight of each vertex between 2 bones (on top of the envelopes) and add morph points that deform the model better when bones are rotated and turned a certain way, make biceps bulge etc. These things make the model deform that much better, but it means the model can no longer touch the a single vertex, poly, tri changed at all then model. If you delete a single vertex all the vertex weighting and morph points will go to shit. (as all tris and veritces are numbered etc)
e)Animate. You move your skeleton making it move, run dance etc. The rigging you've done will move the mesh to the skeleton/bones, you'll adjust the rigging as you animate too (though you'll have bent legs and moved arms, all joints in the rigging process anyway. The frames of the poor old quake guys run,shoot cycles are to sadly to few and I feel not really worth animating to... 6 frames for a run, you can't even get like the 8 key frames of a run/walk into that.
I was gonna list the frames numbers and what they are, but just open the player model in qME and have a look.
f)Export. md3 are easier to export from max (with the right exporter). Export... choose the mesh and the number of frames and your done.
There's better formats out there for player models than md3, the skeletal format Darkplaces has DPM is ok, but Warsow has the nicest SKM, they're both base on half-life 1/2s SMDs.
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Here's a rar that contains player.tga, quakeguy collapsed 0-142.max, complete animations.pts, ExportMD3.dle
The 3ds max 08 file has the original quake player model (edit poly of course) thats unwrapped and animated with all his original 0-142 frames of glory. He's the right scale, in the right pos and facing the right direction too for exporting to a md3/mdl... plus the frames are in the right order too (i've locked his pos,scale and rotation by the way). It uses a morph or point cache to be precise (you need "complete animations.pts" so don't delete it) to load all the different frames. Not really good for much, besides ref if your making a new model or animating one.
The player mesh and all its glorious animations are of course ids creation, the texture is how ever primeevil's, I think he used some of moos textures to create it too. No credit to me, just needed a texture for the material in max.
primeevil? http://primevil.quake-world.fr/index.php or http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1022
moo? http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?id=504&p=1
ExportMD3.dle, this is the last/latest working working plug-in for 3ds max 8 (that i know of). I think it works for max 6-8, but unfortunately no longer functions for max 9 and above
place in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\plugins and export all the md3 you want from max, then convert to mdl if your so inclined. I think this is the last version which was updated by mojo... i think? http://mojo.gmaxsupport.com/
Like I said technically not much use, as its not rigged to a skeleton. But you can do wacky things if you like. For example...
a)if you want to animate fast v_weaps, If you open the max file and unhide all you'll see I've attached 2 objects so they follow the surface of the gun and axe called "attachment_gun" and "attachment_axe". I've created a temp axe and gun and linked them to "attachments_gun" and "attachment_axe" (I've also shrunk down the axe where appropriate). So in theory you can just merge in a new v_weap, align it to axe or gun, then link it, and all the animation should match. Probably be a little twitchy here and there, on the idle animations, so it'll probably be best to add a few rotation frames here and there to smooth things out.
b)You could also throw another uvw unwrap underneath the point cache on the stack, and adjust the unwrapping if you wanted. then re-export to creat your new skin
c)Maybe throw a "edit poly" on top of the "point cache" and cut in a bit of more detail into the model and then re-export. This is always a bad idea and you have 90% chance of the model chucking the shits on you eventually and you'll be pissed off at the wasted time.
Though you could always find a default pose (29s good) make a copy of the model, collapse it at that frame, cut more detail into the mesh and then "skinwrap" (at the same frame) to the untouched model underneath with the "point cache" on it. You'll probably get some crappy results though.
...like I said its only really good if you use 3ds max (6-8 if you want the exporter to work, and 8 and above to open it)
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