Blender-to-Blender-to-Noesis-to-Q2: how to animate?

[Gaku]

I've managed to setup a workflow of sorts for getting Blender files into Quake 2.

1) Create the model in Blender 2.63
2) Export it as a .obj
3) Import it into Blender 2.49b
4) Export as .mdl
5) Convert .mdl to .md2 using Noesis

Unfortunately my md2s are just a single frame, which results in spam error messages in-game.
I'm curious, what would be my best bet for compiling animation frames, and how could I pack them into the md2?

Also, is there a listing of which animation frames correspond to which states?

Thanks,

[taniwha]

Ugh, why such pain? Try this script for Blender 2.63+. While the documentation is poor to non-existent, it does support two styles of animation export: scripted, and simple frame 1-current. It doesn't do md2, though, so you you still have to go through the mdl->md2 step.

If there are any issues with the script (including just questions), let me know and I'll do what I can (I wrote it).

I know of no such listing, but I can certainly make qfcc generate one. Hmm, actually, that might be a nice distraction from fighting with the optimizer. How does hknight.frame sound for an output filename?

[taniwha]

Ok, just for fun, I added the above feature to qfcc (currently only in git, check the for details). Just add --frames to the command line (eg, qfcc --frames) and all files that use frame macros (ie, states) will generate a <basename>.frame file with the frame name and number, one frame per line. I kept the format simple so it should be easy to write tools to get the lists into more useful form (actually, I was too lazy to do more than while (frame) printf ("%s %d\n", frame->name, frame->num);).

[hogsy]

[leileilol]

Could be worse. He could be using Milkshape (based on outdated suggestions and tutorials) to import a OBJ from Blender to animate and export a MD3 then convert that MD3 to MD2 using Quark then use qME to convert that MD2 to an MDL!


I should also mention since bmeshes were introduced in 2.63 this broke backwards importing compatibilty for the meshes for previous Blenders. I still 2.61.

[Gaku]

[Gaku]

[qbism]

directory goes here C:\blender-2.63a-release-windows64\2.63\scripts\addons\io_mesh_qfmdl

milkshape does a good job of exporting md2 directly. This would be ok for simple animations. Make the model in something else ->obj ->milkshape-> md2

[leileilol]

Even for simple animations Milkshape is bad for its bone distorting bugs, and there's no IK.

Let's not encourage $30 obsolete and limited shareware in 2012.


I'd still like a working NOT-BASED-ON-GODDAMN-NEHE-TUTORIALS Blender md2 exporter that actually works with Quake 2. This is the very thing that's holding me back from a data project for years (and how do I make a spr2 also anyway?)

[qbism]

It is doubtful that anyone would endorse md2 or ms3d nowadays. The two are equally obsolete and vertex-swimmy/ bone-swimmy. But in terms of direct export of animated md2, there's not much choice.

Maybe md3? Several quake2 engines support it. kmquake2 does a great job and adds a shader language.

[leileilol]

Alternate model formats aren't really a choice when the goal is compatibility (OA gets blind suggestions to move to IQM all the time due to md3 export deprecation from programmers unwilling to fix them). As far as I know, no one attempted to make MD3s nicely loaded for the software renderer (due to the whole multiple surface thing).

[taniwha]

[ceriux]

those tutorials are quite outdated and kind of bad. i suppose i should make better tutorials for those using something other than max. now i export to md3 then convert straight to mdl.

[Seven]

It is interesting to read that almost everyone uses different ways to achive what they want.
That heavily depends on the currently used program and its familiarness to the individual.

Nevertheless, it is very interesting to see different/other ways to come from A to C.

I am a little suprised that noone mentioned Sajts "qwalk" yet:
http://icculus.org/qshed/qwalk/
It converts easy and quick between mdl, md2 and md3
(except export to md3, which does not work yet)
Maybe it is a less known tool ...


Regarding leileilol´s sprite question:
I saw a convertion from md5 to sprite (a Doom2 mod uses it).
It converted all D3 weapons and other models into Doom2 sprites:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/doom-3-weapon ... d-patch-47

I also saw a blender plugin that could export sprites.
But I am a too big noob at these things to be able to really help you.

Maybe this link does help you with spr2 ?
http://www.atelierquebec.ca/iffsnooper/ ... prite.html

[leileilol]

THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE QUAKE2 SPRITE2 FORMAT.