Blender md2 issues

[Gaku]

I'm new to Blender and modeling - learning as I work my way through tutorials and by trial and error.
a few of questions and issues regarding Blender/md2

1) Since the default player models are all called "tris.md2", am I safe in assuming that md2 only supports triangles and no other polygons?

2) When I create a simple shape in Blender (for example, a cube with 2 triangles per face), export it to md2 using io_export_md2.py, and then open it in QME (v 3.1 preview 2), I immediately get spammed with endless "Access violation at address XXXXXXXXX in module 'qmelite.exe'. Read of address 00000000." Am I doing something wrong?

3) In previous tests with an older version of QME (I think the first one I came across was 0.9), I could open md2 files, but the paint feature always gave similar errors. Else it would just paint the entire model a single color when I clicked it; very confusing.

4) How can I check whether a volume conforms to whatever standards are required by md2?

[Spike]

1: every single common model format is triangles only. its only really posh ones that do weird stuff, and only modern hardware can even accept anything more than just triangles. That said, the triangles in an md2 file are specified as fans or strips, for performance with older hardware. At the end of the day, ALL polygons boil down to triangles. Even bezier patches.

2: sounds like a buggy exporter. You can try exporting a q1 mdl instead, and convert in QME.
taniwha or leileilol might be able to help more there.

3: different versions, different places the data is used.

4: md2 has no size limits, but does only have 8-bit precision with arbitary scale. This means that you can have a model 100 miles wide, but you'll only have 256 different points that you can put a vertex.
the scale is per-frame, which results in vertex swiming. You can get away with that for organic models, but for non-organic models you get some really ugly swimming.


If your target engine supports IQM, get the blender iqm exporter and use that format instead, without using QME. You should get better results.
I know not exactly which Q2 engines support IQM.

[leileilol]

It IS a buggy exporter. It's the result of developing an exporter not for Quake2, but for a Nehe tutorial instead





I'd suggest exporting into another format that doesn't have a sad , blindly-written exporter (like IQM or MD3) then converting the resulting model to MD2 with a tool like qwalk or Noesis.

[taniwha]

Better yet, if the engine supports it, why not just use IQM or MD3 and be done with it?

[Gaku]

[andrewj]

[Gaku]

Ok, so I've managed to generate a fully textured model using Blender with 254 vertices.

If I output an .md2 directly from Blender and load it into Quake 2, I get an error that the skin is over 480 units tall.

If I output the model as a .3ds and then open it in QMELite v 3.1p2, I can save is as a .md2 and open it in Quake 2. HOWEVER, when I import the skin, it doesn't match properly. Also, the resulting .md2 is only 19kB, whereas the one generated from Blender is closer to 300kB.

If I open the .3ds in Noesis and export it as an .md2, it creates a .md2 that is 27kB in size. This file opens in Quake 2 but fails to have any skin applied to it at all (just black). It's odd that Noesis has an option to export the skin information as a .pcx but lacks any obvious way to import a skin.

Any ideas on what I should try? I'm just trying to get this thing loaded into q2.

[andrewj]

[Gaku]

[leileilol]

If you downgrade to Blender 2.49 (install that separately), you can use the MD3 or MDL scripts and go through a conversion to MD2 through or .

[Gaku]

[leileilol]

Well that's due to 2.63 using the new Bmesh system.