I recently made a quake III model in Max and exported it using a plugin, then ran md3compiler. I have all the tags and stuff right as far as I know; the model icon even shows up in the game. However, when I click it the game defaults to the main menu. The error it is getting is a "too many vertices" error on lower.md3. This is not logical, however; my model's lower part has about 700 vertices and the game says it has over 2000.
It might be interesting to note that my friend is having the same problem, and he followed the same process.
Why does quake think my model has so many verts?
Failed to load lower.md3
The vertex count in max will not be correct for a realtime application. Game engines typically have to split vertices in order to handle different materials, discontinuous uvs (ie, seams) and smoothing group boundaries.
There is a good, in depth explanation at http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html which also suggests some ways to minimise vertex duplication.
There is a good, in depth explanation at http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html which also suggests some ways to minimise vertex duplication.