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Quake Modelling 101 and Working With Models

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  • Quake Modelling 101 and Working With Models

    Quake Modelling 101

    Making a Quake map is fairly easy ...
    Working on 24-bit replacement textures is easy ...
    Working on models with Quake is hard. Possibly the most difficult thing to do with Quake because of the large number of peculiar things.

    However, the best thing about working on models is that at least most of the tools are free or inexpensive and there are a wide variety of ones that can used.




    The Models Themselves

    Quake models (player, weapons, items, monsters) reside in pak0.pak and pak1.pak in the progs folder (use Pakscape to open pak files)

    Quake models have the extension .mdl.

    The best program to open a Quake model is QME (download).



    Skins

    Editing the skin of an exist model can be done fairly easily. Just double click an .mdl to open it in QME and right click on a skin and you IMPORT/EXPORT it.

    You can also create 24-bit replacement textures. For DarkPlaces, the replacement texture goes in c:\quake\id1\progs and for Qrack/JoeQuake engines they go in c:\quake\id1\textures\models

    Beware: There are 2 naming conventions for 24-bit model replacement skins. The "DarkPlaces/Tenebrae convention" would use armor.mdl_0.png where as the "JoeQuake/Qrack/FuhQuake convention" would use armor_0.png.



    About Models and MD3 Models

    Sometimes you run across a .mdl file that you can't open in QME. Usually this is not an .mdl at all, but rather a .md3 file (Quake 3 model format)! Almost all modern engines support md3 models and typically they will be renamed to .mdl so the engines uses them.

    Most of the time, there is no compelling reason to use .md3 models (unless they are very complicated) because the .mdl format supports a reasonable amount of polygons and vertices, but the best modelling programs do not typically natively support the old Quake .mdl format but do support the popular .md3 format and converting .md3 to .mdl can be a painful process.

    Converting .md3 to .mdl

    There are a LOT of ways to not do this right. MonkeyRat -- also known as Plague and Plagued MonkeyRat -- helped me out big time with figuring this out. I've been 100% successful at converting .md3 to .mdl after his great advice. (MonkeyRat made Plague's Pak - a set of great weapon and armor replacement models you see used A LOT).

    Download a copy of Quick3D Professional (shareware trial version) and open the .md3 and save .mdl AFTER resizing any textures so that they do not exceed the 256 x 256 Quake limit.

    (There are other methods involving Quark and this may work just as well)

    After you convert an MD3 to MDL, you will need to open it in QME and set any flags -- if necessary -- so the model rotates or has a rocket trail (if it is a rocket) and so forth. You might also need to center it/scale it.



    MD3/MDL Modelling Tools

    You can make models in QME and it does come with tutorials. However, that being said, there are a lot better programs out there for making models.

    1. Blender (freeware and Open Source)
    2. Milkshape 3d (31 day full trial, $25 to register)
    3. GMax (free)
    4. Many others -- I can't keep track, I've tried several

    However, the best place to start is Preach's awesome tutorial (link) on Modelling he made for Quake Expo 2006.

    It is very difficult at first -- DO THE WHOLE THING. It gets a lot easier after you understand what is going on.

    The best way to approach modelling is to do a lot of tutorials, there are several tutorials for a lot of these programs.

    Also, you may want to consider opening models for games such Quake 3 and looking at them. If you don't have Quake 3, Open Arena is basically a Quake 3 Arena clone and Nexuiz uses a lot of Quake models as well.

    There are a lot of guys at Inside3D that have modelling experience and are familiar with a lot of the challenges/hurdles so that is a great place to ask questions or search the forum.
    Quakeone.com - Being exactly one-half good and one-half evil has advantages. When a portal opens to the antimatter universe, my opposite is just me with a goatee.

    So while you guys all have to fight your anti-matter counterparts, me and my evil twin will be drinking a beer laughing at you guys ...
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