[quake3] MD4 support in ioq3 as a patch?

[monk at rq3.com]

Thanks for the responses thus far!

To address Thilo's concerns:

MD4 support via EF.  I'm not sure I understand.  You mention MDR as being
the same thing as MD4, but the information I got seems to disagree?  In
fact the information I have to the contrary I got from the very same site
you pointed me to:

http://synapse.vgfort.com/skinning.php

Specifically:

"The mdr file is a compressed collection of several md3 files."
...
"You don't have to make your files mdr they can be md3 and it will still
work. So you could use all your model files as md3 and have no problems."

The only information that I can find is that the models were originally
animated with bones and whatnot and then exported/compiled into the MDR
format.  Which "is a compressed collection of several md3 files."

I didn't send the MD4 email out to personally attack your work on EF or
IOQ3 and I'm sorry if you took it that way.  It was not my intent and I
was only going on the information I had at hand.  I mention this only
because you seem to be taking it as a personal attack?

> There should be only one system that most people will agree on. And that
> is the system where best modelling and animation support exists for.

Maybe, but I'm more of the thought of offering choice.  If someone has the
option to choose what fits them best, why make it harder for them by only
endorsing one 'official' format?

I suppose part of the problem is that there's no way for a layman like me
to look at the implemented features at:

http://www.ioquake3.org/?page=status

And somehow know to look at:

http://svn.icculus.org/quake3/trunk/md4-readme.txt?rev=729&view=markup

Even then, the information at the sites listed don't particularly mention
skeletal animation and list Milkshape3D as the main tool for working with
this format?  I'm looking at some of Gongo's MD4 downloads:

http://gongo.quakedev.com/files.html

...and seeing a bunch of different versions of the exporter for 3DSMax
plus the source for someone to modify to work with any other versions, I
suppose.

As stated, the other tool on the page, skl2md4, apparently has preliminary
support for working with HL and HL2 SML/MDL files.  Get that
tweaked/fixed/completed and that opens up all the tools and plugins made
for the HUGE HL/HL2 artist community.  Heck, you might even be able to
modify that code to import HL/HL2 files directly into the MD4 renderer on
the fly.

That seems like decent present application support and excellent potential
application support.  If there are other MDR plugins besides the ones for
Milkshape3D, heck, that EF skinning tutorial should link to 'em!

I am sad you're viewing this as an MD4 versus MDR thing.  If someone got
MD4 working as an unsupported "patch" for IOQ3 to be posted at:

http://www.ioquake3.org/?page=patches

...you'd be willing to take your stuff out of IOQ3?  Why?  I just don't
understand why you'd have to do that or even want to do that.  It seems
like you're taking this personally and I'm not sure why.  But I am sorry
as, again, it's not my intent to pop on this discussion list and say, "ha
ha, let's get MD4 working and force Thilo to rip out all his MDR work from
IOQ3!"

No, really, this is NOT my intent.  And I'm sorry it's somehow being
perceived this way.

"Sorry to say it, but at the moment I am not particularly interested."

Ok, no harm no foul!

---------------------------

Ok, if MDR is more than just a collection of compressed MD3's and does
support skeletal animation, is anyone willing to try and whip up some more
support/tool programs for it?  Plugins, importers/exporters, that kind of
thing?

I'm approaching this from the standpoint of a guy trying to entice content
developers to make stuff for my mod/game.  Be it Reaction, Western Quake
3, Navy Seals Quake 3, Urban Terror, whatever.  So far MD4 seems to be one
of the best bets because it appears to offer so much support in getting
content from various places actually in to a format I would be able to
use.

I need to be able to butter up some animator and show them, yes, you can
use X and Y to produce animated models for this project.  And they will
work with the programs you already use.  Maya support would be nice, but I
do not know what that would entail.

The only other thing I can think of that might work as far as support and
"mindshare" would be the MD5 support in Xreal.  Due to Doom 3 and it being
"new".  But I don't know what kind of support's there... does it just load
static models?  I see the guy can also load Lightwave objects, which is
neat too.  But does he have support for skeletal animation and whatnot?  I
just don't know.

Gongo's MD4 work seems, to me, to still be one of the most promising
solutions to the "get more artists to work on Q3-based projects" problem
that I have run into over the years.  Hopefully someone on this list will
have enough interest to finish 'er off.  Either way, I am also looking
anywhere else I can for interested parties.  Man, used to be you could
find a coder willing to work for mountain dew... ;)

Again, thanks for your time.

Monk.