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MD3 Specific Construction Panel
This plugin defines the 3 variable portions of the Construction panel for MD3 export targets.
By nature there are 3 different filetypes that define an MD3
- Skin files
- Model files
- typically head.md3, lower.md3, and upper.md3
- Configuration file
- animation.cfg which lists all the frameloops so the engine can run the right frames at the right times.
This plugin is used to create the model and animation files in an automated fashion. This also helps to keep those 2 in sync. Creating a skin file can be done with any graphical paint program, but any image that happens to the applied to your lightwave objects as a UV mapped image will be linked into the exported .md3 file by name (path will be replaced by the plugin).
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Base Directory Info
This is where you tell the plugin where to put the files you are rendering out. Supposing your output directory is:
F:\Games\Quake III Arena\baseq3\models\players\modelname
The fields would be defined as:
Base dir - F:\Games\Quake III Arena\baseq3
Model Subdirectory - models\players\modelname
All skin files are linked into the model as existing in the Model Subdirectory regardless of where you get them from for your LightWave objects.
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Output Options - the 2 different output files are separated by tabs
Model specific data:
- Model name
- Filename to export to (no extension)
- Save w/ all
- Whether to save the model geometry or not. If this is just for frame export, uncheck this box.
- Anchor Tag name
- If this is filled in, the model's geometry will be exported as if it was grounded by the listed tag.
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Configuration file data:
- Config file name
- Filename to export to.
- Save w/ all
- Whether to save the frame data out or not. If this is just for exporting the model, uncheck this box. Typically, either this or the model one will be checked.
- .cfg File Header
- With the newer point release, more flags and special instructions were added to the animation.cfg file . This is an attempt to expand with that. You provide a file here, and it's contents will be spat to the configuration file before the frameloops are. This way you can define the models head offset, or footsteps or whatever.
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Loop Editing
Each MD3 file loop has a few independant parameters. These will be saved out to the Configuration files, they have no real effect on the models. These parameters are global for a given frameloop.
- Frames/sec
- Speed the Quake3 engine should run this animation at. This will default to be equal to the current FPS for Layout.
- Looping frames
- How many frames in the loop should really 'loop' inside the Quake3 engine once all the frames have been run through once. Setting this to -1 is equivalent to saying 'All' and it will be replaced by the length of this frameloop when the file is exported.
- Frame Notes:
- A comment that will be spat out to the configuration file after this frameloop's name.
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