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Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 2:54 am
by JasonX
I'm working on some new models for Q1 and i ended up having some questions about the MDL format. I'm using this as a base: http://tfc.duke.free.fr/coding/mdl-specs-en.html
  • The spec says that the format supports multiple textures. Does this mean that i can use one texture for hands and another for gun, for example? Or maybe one for head and another for torso?
  • What's the Quake player scale equivalent in Blender units?
  • Which way is up and which way is forward?
  • What is everyone using to compile MDL? I'm exporting to MD3 and using qwalk: http://www.icculus.org/qshed/qwalk/

Re: Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:14 am
by Spike
multiple skins, single texture, single surface. if you want multiple surfaces/textures you'll need md3 or iqm.
player is 56 units high (bbox of -16 -16 -24 to '16 16 32', firing position at +16, view/eye position at +22).
up = +z. forward = +x. doesn't really mean that blender will display those same axis (exporters will typically translate stuff like that).
I don't export to mdl, although I'm somewhat tempted to update my iqm exporter to spit out mdl+md3 files instead. iirc taniwha made an mdl exporter for blender but I've no experience of it.

Re: Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 9:10 pm
by ericw
Preach also has some tools:
https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/md3tomdl/
https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/qmdl/ -- python module for working with mdl

Re: Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 9:32 pm
by JasonX
Thanks a lot for the help, guys. Another question: can a texture be 128x256 or 256x128, for example?

Re: Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 5:16 am
by ceriux
Yeah i believe they can.

Re: Questions on Quake 1 MDL

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 11:11 pm
by Madfox
Maximum skin size = height 300 width varies..

I found height 280 the best limit.
For the size it seems 1000vertices 2000 triangles are maximum.
I use a comercial Animation Studio to make animations.
Then import and the 3ds in Qmle.
It chooses it own skin size.

Another good model studio for Quake1 is q2mdlr9b.
It's also compatible with q2 models, so good for converting.
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/q2mdlr9b-alsoq1.zip