Model formats

[oneofthe8devilz]

Maybe I am just blatantly ignorant or maybe I did not properly understand the intend of your question but I use 3dsmax 2010 for the past 5 years on a daily basis to export models, animations and static meshes (.md5mesh, .md5anim and .ASE) from 3dsmax to Doom3 without fail, using der_ton's 3dsmax import/export scripts. Also the export of Doom3 content back to 3dsmax 2010 via the editor in .obj format works flawless...

So is using 3dsmax 2010 instead no option for you ?

[motorsep]

FBX to MD5 standalone converter is a way to go, but there are not programmers interested doing that kind of work, even for money (maybe some would do it for a lot of money ).

There is FBX to IQM converter, so maybe it would be easy to add MD5 support to it.

Alternatively one can learn Blender

[MrC]

FBX to MD5 standalone converter is a way to go, but there are not programmers interested doing that kind of work, even for money (maybe some would do it for a lot of money ).

There is FBX to IQM converter, so maybe it would be easy to add MD5 support to it.

Alternatively one can learn Blender

That's unfortunate and yea I think I might give Blender a go, but I shouldn't have to gosh darnit. I don't like new things and things that are different, I'm old.

[motorsep]

From what I've heard about FBX, it's a horrible format from programmer's perspective.

It would be nice to find MaxScript guru, or whatever MAX offers now (Python?) and have him/her to port existing MD5 export script to current 3DS MAX.

For Maya, all that would be required is adding Maya plugin back to Doom 3 BFG, and compiling it against Maya (the issue is that people who would mod for Doom 3 would use Maya LT and it can only export into FBX).

[MrC]

Maybe I am just blatantly ignorant or maybe I did not properly understand the intend of your question but I use 3dsmax 2010 for the past 5 years on a daily basis to export models, animations and static meshes (.md5mesh, .md5anim and .ASE) from 3dsmax to Doom3 without fail, using der_ton's 3dsmax import/export scripts. Also the export of Doom3 content back to 3dsmax 2010 via the editor in .obj format works flawless...

So is using 3dsmax 2010 instead no option for you ?

Yea I kinda ranted a little bit there.

That was one of the first things I tried, I know I must be missing something since as you say you don't have any issue and people are working with things just fine. I do have 2010 as well, mostly for occasion such as this and exported out of 2014 as a 2010 FBX although it seems to hate the rig even though at it's core it's just bones and a single(ish) editable mesh. So I can get static, boned, meshes back (and yes I did hit the little animation checkbox and all that) and then used der_ton's scripts from 2010 which produced a pretzel-esque model when animated (I made a quick test just in 2010 for an animation). I'm going to play around some more with this still and I do appreciate the help. Mostly I was curious if there was still anything stirring in the community here in terms of converters and such before diving back into this wonderful mess. Never give up, never surrender.

[The Happy Friar]

Also the model worked fine in UE4, Unity, and Source.

I read stuff like that a lot.  The D3 engine is 11 years old, those ones have been updated in 2015.  I find it harder to get content in to Quake 2 then Doom 3.  Just like everything else, once you learn the method it's pretty easy and I can (now) as easily get something in to Quake 2 or Doom 3.  I wouldn't have a clue how to get stuff in to Source, so I could say the same thing. 

[MrC]

Also the model worked fine in UE4, Unity, and Source.

I read stuff like that a lot.  The D3 engine is 11 years old, those ones have been updated in 2015.  I find it harder to get content in to Quake 2 then Doom 3.  Just like everything else, once you learn the method it's pretty easy and I can (now) as easily get something in to Quake 2 or Doom 3.  I wouldn't have a clue how to get stuff in to Source, so I could say the same thing. 

Exporting out to Source .smd, very easy. Compiling the actual model, well that's another story. Again, sorry, I was a bit frustrated when I posted and probably shouldn't have. You're right though, just takes time and I kinda rushed in here like a storm but hopefully this has lead to some new information that anyone else in a similar situation can use.

Okay so here's what worked, I kept trying to go the FBX route and it would strip controllers out or have one issue or another and generally a happy day it did not make with a lot of skinning vertex weight issues. It had occurred to me that I could export to Source just fine (which I've been doing on a regular basis) using WallWorm (http://dev.wallworm.com/) for 2014, so I grabbed an importer for 2010 from here: http://www.wunderboy.org/apps/smdimport.php and imported the reference and the animation .smd files from an already exported model. The importer rebuilt the bones and all that jazz and then I exported out using der_ton's exporter without incident. So basically this process allows one to animate in a later version then step backwards to where the last usable exporters for MD5 on Max are. It's not an elegant solution but it's something, the slot where Blender might have had to fit in (whew).

Anyway, I still think a SMD to MD5 command line converter would be amazing though to skip the re-export stage or even an updated exporter would be fantastic still but maybe there's not enough incentive for it so for now at least there's one way to do it.

[MrC]

I just wanted to post a bit of a correction here but it seems the smd->max2010->md5 pipeline doesn't work for everything but here's the good news and wow do I feel foolish, apparently max can save out to earlier versions, up to 3 earlier versions, so for anyone else using max you might want to keep your installs (until an updated exporter materializes), I'm glad I did. So I saved out from 2014 to 2011(format) and then from 2013(install) to 2010(format), imported into Max 2010, all rigging survived (unlike my luck using FBX) and then out to MD5 (gogo gadget der_ton ftw) without any issues. Anyway just thought I'd bring that up, I didn't even realize they had that option, which apparently has been there for some time, so, um, yea, guess that's it then.

[motorsep]

Makes sense to do some crowd funding to update Max/Maya exporters for Doom 3

[BielBdeLuna]

is it really difficult to incorporate some vertex deformation code to idTech4 or idTechX and add it to md5?