Model editor used in Quake1?

[JasonX]

Does anyone know the original modelling program used by the artists in Q1? What about the painting program?

[toneddu2000]

IIRC it should be Alias PowerAnimator or simply "Alias". The mother (or father) of Maya.

[mankrip]

Yes; that's also the reason why MDL models are commonly referred to as "alias models".

[r00k]

oh nice history lesson!

[Madfox]

Really surprised the example picture off the Alias Power Animation shows off with a Thunderbird 3 model of Gerry Anderson's TV Series.

[mankrip]

Oops, missed this one:

What about the painting program?

They used Deluxe Paint. By the way, here's a good read:

All of the in-game textures in QUAKE 2 were created using Electronic Arts’ venerable Deluxe Paint, and for some animations we also used Kinetix’s Animator Pro. You may chuckle at our choice of Deluxe Paint, as the program has been around for ages. But for static manipulation of pixels using a 256-color palette, there really is no substitute.

[mankrip]

And a good interview explaining some of the process:

Prior to Texpaint we’d edit the skin in Deluxe Paint. However, in Deluxe Paint you can’t easily identify what part of the skin is where and how it should really look wrapped on the model.

It seems that Deluxe Paint was used for the models in Quake 1, and Texpaint for the ones in Quake 2.