mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Discuss the creation of various model formats for Quake engines, and related matters to modeling.
SusanMDK
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Re: mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Post by SusanMDK »

Mmm.. I probably don't want to do the Q3 type animation thing, I tried it earlier and it was kind of weird to animate, and didn't like splitting the character into so many entities.

I doubt I'll make any models that would require 100mb ram. Current plan is to have characters at 800 tris.. probably some +400 verts then. Let's say I have a character at 800 tris, 450 verts, 25 bones, and 100 frames of animation. Then I put 100 of these into one game scene. Would it be better as skeletal or non skeletal?
zbang!
Spike
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Re: mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Post by Spike »

position+normal+sdir+tdir = 4*4*3 = 48 bytes per vertex per frame. 450 verts 100 frames, that's 2.1mb for the animation data. small enough that noone really gives a damn.
essentally the problem is that you need silly numbers of animations in order to combine legs and torso etc animations without it looking silly. which is why q3 did the poor-man's skeletal thing with its separate body parts.
skeletal animations essentually permit you to split the entity in two without using multiple entities (although you do need to use two sets of animation values).
Vic
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Re: mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Post by Vic »

Just wanted to let everyone know that I wrote an IQE exporter for Noesis so that the standard IQM converter may be used on Noesis-exported models: https://github.com/viciious/noesis_iqe as the builtin IQM-exporter was too troublesome. IQE-to-IQM is the de facto recommended way to generate your IQM models.
toneddu2000
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Re: mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Post by toneddu2000 »

Wow, cool Vic! Thanks a lot for doing this! So you say the best way to export to iqm is to pass through iqe and then convert to iqm. But Blender has iqe/iqm exporter. So this plugin is for users that don't want to use Blender, right?
Just a little note: you wrote in your gitHub title: "Source code for Noesis Inter-Quake Export (IEQ) plugin." instead of "(IQE)".Nothing important just for pointing out.
Meadow Fun!! - my first commercial game, made with FTEQW game engine
Vic
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Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:42 am

Re: mdl, md2, md3, dpm, iqm, etc... Optimal model format.

Post by Vic »

toneddu2000 wrote:Wow, cool Vic! Thanks a lot for doing this! So you say the best way to export to iqm is to pass through iqe and then convert to iqm. But Blender has iqe/iqm exporter. So this plugin is for users that don't want to use Blender, right?
Right. Noesis is widely used as anything-to-anything converter.

Also note that eihrul has fixed support for Noesis-exported ascii FBX (commit), so that format is also suitable for producing IQM models by the standard tool now.
toneddu2000 wrote: Just a little note: you wrote in your gitHub title: "Source code for Noesis Inter-Quake Export (IEQ) plugin." instead of "(IQE)".Nothing important just for pointing out.
I'll fix this shortly, thanks.
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