quake 1 and quake 2 models to quake 3? (and back)

[tritonfx]

It's me again with another conversion question .
Is there any free (or really cheap) software that can convert mdl and md2 to md3 or the reverse?
I tried milkshape but none of the animations are saved.

[o'dium]

Different formats. While you CAN convert them (Use milkshape or something cheap), you wont be able to use the same animations without some major ugly hackage (Which is what i suspect you want to do).

Keep in mind that the vertex compression in each format is better than the previous, so converting a Q3 model to Q2 or Q1, and back again, will produce some odd and most of the time ugly results in animation which makes them look like jelly

[obsidian]

ugly results in animation which makes them look like jelly

I imagine that would look something like the way Jarjar Binks walks.

[o'dium]

Pretty much

But for tritonfx, what the vertex compression does is round up the actual X Y Z origin space of each vertex. Each engine is better at saving this info as close to the original as possible. For example, a perfectly flat square shape thats exactly in line with each vert may suddenly look odd when saved and reopened. The same happens with animation, each vert will get "as close as possible" to the original origin, but it may look like its all wobbly when moving.

I guess a further expansion on the topic would be... What EXACTLY do you want to do? Whats it for?

[tritonfx]

I'm actually creating an engine for the DS and md3's are too slow to display on it. md2's and mdl's are fine but i dont like many of the models that are available.