What do you use to edit/animate an MD2?

Community Forums/Developer Stations/What do you use to edit/animate an MD2?

CopperCircle(Posted 2003) [#1]
What do you use to edit/animate an MD2?
Anyone reccomend anything? preferably thats free.


jhocking(Posted 2003) [#2]
There are lots of tools which can export to md2. I've never actually animated in this tool but one free tool which is practically a necessity when working with md2 files is Q2 Modeller, a piece of freeware that can be downloaded from the Eldermage site (I think; it keeps moving around.) Just search on Google. While I've never actually modeled or animated in Q2 Modeller I have used it for other editing tasks like naming the frames in the md2 file.

For just a tiny bit of money however you can pick up tools like Milkshape, CharacterFX, and Ultimate Unwrap which have very robust export to md2 file format. Those tools are useful for so many other things too that it is worth not going to see a movie or ordering pizza one weekend (that's literally how inexpensive they are.)


Blue Steel(Posted 2003) [#3]
Actually with MD2 its pretty easy. You only really need to convert to MD2 at the last step. You can create a model in any format in any modeling program and animate it. Once it is animated, export each frame of animation as a single DXF file. Then using QME (search on google) you can import all these individual frames in one easy step all at once and save it as a MD2.

I use this method when working with Animation Master and creating MD2s. It is working fine for my game Cletus 3D.


jhocking(Posted 2003) [#4]
I almost forgot. That was another thing Q2 Modeller was useful for, smooshing together animation frames saved as separate models into a single md2 file. This is not a procedure for the faint of heart however. If you don't understand how md2 works under the hood then this is pretty hard to grasp. It's a lot easier just to export straight to md2.

I'm surprised there isn't an md2 exporter for Animation Master. Most of the major tools and many minor ones have md2 exporters.


Blue Steel(Posted 2003) [#5]
Most of the major tools and many minor ones have md2 exporters.
Might be for the newer versions of AM, its been several years since I went to the site. At one time it was pretty hard to find MD2 exporters/converters that would work properly which is why I started using QME for that. Heck, I still use the MD2 to X converter I wrote when I need an X of one of my MD2 models.


CopperCircle(Posted 2003) [#6]
Thanks, i`l take a look at Q2 modeller, the prob i have is that i have a md2 model and i need to add another animation to it.


Blue Steel(Posted 2003) [#7]
I recommend QME over the Q2 modelor. QME is shareware but worth the modest price


Blue Steel(Posted 2003) [#8]
I don't know if they continued development on Aztec, but it was a really good free MD2/MD3 modelor a few years back


CopperCircle(Posted 2003) [#9]
Thanks Brice, Aztec is a great tool.


Blue Steel(Posted 2003) [#10]
NP, glad it worked for you :c)


Psycoach(Posted 2003) [#11]
What is the meaning of MD2 and MD3 please ?


jhocking(Posted 2003) [#12]
They are the file formats used in Quake2 and Quake3. The acronyms don't mean anything really; in Quake the models format was MDL (for "model") and in subsequent games they merely enumerated the file format.


Psycoach(Posted 2003) [#13]
Thanks for the explanation :-)