What's chopping up my MD3's?

jzero

Got a problem with exporting MD3's from Max. I'm using Max 5 and the newest version of Cookson's improved PnF exporter, which otherwise works fine. Problem is, when I try and actually use the MD3 as a weapon model, Quake3 rejects it because it has more than 1000 verts.

Now, that might be possible if my model wasn't only 586 polys to start with, and that's measuring tris. When I export and then import the MD3 straight back into MAX, I can select individual triangles at the Element level, and pull the tris apart, like they were never part of a mesh or had verts welded to anything. They're not broken up by UV groups, although some are still welded in that order. But most of the polys are not attached to each other after export.

Here's the E-Poly as it begins in Max:


Here's the MD3 imported as an E-Mesh:


So my question is, WTF is going wrong with my export? (And please don't suggest that I change the modeler, the OS it runs on, or the game I'm exporting for. )

/jzero

MoP

Have you tried totally triangulating the mesh, converting to editable mesh (and making sure you have no hidden edges), then exporting that?

ElysiumGX

I have this exact same problem when converting from 3DS using Npherno's MD3 compiler.

jzero

Yeah, MoP, tried it just now, converting to Mesh and making all the edges visible. I also made sure all the surfaces on the object are all set to the same material ID number. It didn't make any difference, I ended up with the same number of vertices, 1268.

In an act of desperation, I tried seeing how it would work with gmax, which also uses the MD3 exporter, although a different version. Took my Max model and made it a 3DS, which ended up with almost the same number of disconnected vertices. After importing the 3DS to gmax, I welded all the vertices. Then I exported right back out to a new MD3 file. Then I imported that MD3 into Max and gmax, and they both produced a model with exactly 1268 vertices.

It appears I am screwed. Any advice?

/jzero

MoP

If you send me the Max file, I can give it a shot and troubleshoot... haven't got much to do today anyway

KMan

You try keeping them all on one smoothing group?

jzero

KMan, you are teh Winnah! I thought about trying that, but thanks for giving me the gumption. All polys set to Smoothing Group 1. The same export/reimport process yields an object with 588 verts instead of 1268. The UV-mapped mesh groups seem to be correct also.

Thanks, dudes!

/jzero

MoP

Ah, yeah, this never used to be a problem, because the Pop N Fresh exporter never used to support smoothing groups anyway - you always had to "fix" it in NPherno's viewer. I think Chris Cookson's recompile was made to support smoothing groups, but it looks like maybe that feature isn't quite working as it should?

KMan

Score!

ElysiumGX

What would be the equivalent of only using smoothing group 1 for all the apps that don't use a system of smoothing groups, before exporting to a 3ds?

jzero

I don't think this has anything to do with the 3DS export, Elysium, because that's a built-in Max feature. The MD3 export plugin is a third-party deal.

/jzero

MoP

ElysiumGX: The equivalent of using entirely 1 smoothing group, is to have all soft edges.
Although as jzero says, it doesn't really apply for other programs, since they'll have different exporters...

KMan

I think what the new exporter does now is split up edges where there are different smoothing groups. Since Q3 doesn't support smooth groups, you can fake it by splitting edges in the mesh. This usually isn't much of a problem on a player character, but for weapons and such that have limits, this can be an issue if you don't watch it.

KDR_11k

Player characters have the same limit but per-object.