Alex
Al Knows
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 Saturday, November 21, 2009
You can probably decompile the HalfLife MDL files to SMD and there are import plugins for SMD format on Max.
There are MD3 importers however most do not support importing animations, only a single frame. Also MD3 files are not ideal for editing and next to improbable to "edit" the animations in the model in a program like 3D Studio Max without immense amounts of time spent on it and will more than likely look bad. I'll explain a bit about the format.
MD3 format stores animations as the change in position of the vertexes in the model. While models are originally animated with bones/biped, the animations are "baked" into the mesh when it's exported to MD3. When you import an MD3 into a piece of software to edit, assuming animations are imported correctly, there are no bones or anything to help animate the mesh.
To "edit" the animations you will have to manually move each vertex into the position you want for each frame you want edited.
However, using a tool such as NPherno's MD3 Compiler, you can import merge multiple MD3 files into a single file, as long as the models are exactly the same. This means if you have a model imported and rigged in Max you can potentially animate it normally, export each sequence to MD3 and merge them into a single model.
One thing to be carefuly of, though, is that importing an MD3 to rig and animate, then exporting it again could change the order of the triangles and vertexes, which would not allow you to merge the new MD3's with the original properly. While the meshes seem the same, techincally they may be "different" and the wrong vertexes may move to the positions in the new animations.
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ESFER25
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
You can probably decompile the HalfLife MDL files to SMD and there are import plugins for SMD format on Max.
hmmm, where can I get that plugin and how can I decompile .mdl to .SMD and does it work for Half Life 1, not 2?
There are MD3 importers however most do not support importing animations, only a single frame. Also MD3 files are not ideal for editing and next to improbable to "edit" the animations in the model in a program like 3D Studio Max without immense amounts of time spent on it and will more than likely look bad. I'll explain a bit about the format.
MD3 format stores animations as the change in position of the vertexes in the model. While models are originally animated with bones/biped, the animations are "baked" into the mesh when it's exported to MD3. When you import an MD3 into a piece of software to edit, assuming animations are imported correctly, there are no bones or anything to help animate the mesh.
To "edit" the animations you will have to manually move each vertex into the position you want for each frame you want edited.
However, using a tool such as NPherno's MD3 Compiler, you can import merge multiple MD3 files into a single file, as long as the models are exactly the same. This means if you have a model imported and rigged in Max you can potentially animate it normally, export each sequence to MD3 and merge them into a single model.
One thing to be carefuly of, though, is that importing an MD3 to rig and animate, then exporting it again could change the order of the triangles and vertexes, which would not allow you to merge the new MD3's with the original properly. While the meshes seem the same, techincally they may be "different" and the wrong vertexes may move to the positions in the new animations.
Is that a: don't try edit md3 files? *super mega extreme intense laughter*
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*intense laughter*
