16 bit MDL models?

[drm_wayne]

Im curious, the blender script for quake models seems to have a 16bit option.
After exporting with the 16bit option enabled the header seems to be different.ß
How can i enable support for this format in my engine (im using joequake).
(i guess it needs more than just support for the MDMD16 header).

Greets.

[frag.machine]

Never heard of this format before. Maybe some experimental option ?
What would be the advantages over original MDL ?
EDIT: Maybe it's some option to export to Half Life .mdl format ?
EDIT2: Looks like has your answer.

[drm_wayne]

it has 16 bit vertex data, and i want to use it.
But i think it needs more in the engine than just the header.

[mh]

Look for everywhere the trivertx_t struct is used in the engine; you'll need to adjust that code to also work with the different vertex type.

[drm_wayne]

thanks.

Is the format (apart from the MD16 header and the 16 bit verts) similar?
I guess the texture is still stored like in a regular quake mdl.

[mh]

[drm_wayne]

I already looked at QF source, but its totally different how they handle the models..
Oh well

[Spike]

I had a look at QuakeForge, the 4-byte ident is different, the version is not. the vertex data is doubled-up, with the first set being the high-order data, with the second set being low-order data.
you can should be able to load these by just recognising the header, and skipping over the extra data (just double the vertex count for purposes of on-disk frame size).
the extra data is 'optional' data, in that its all 0, nothing else changes. there's also some extra nomalindex stuff in that data, which should be considered padding.
I've not actually tested this of course as I'm too lazy to figure out how to use the various tools, but it looks fairly simple to load these (actually using the data might be a little more complex if you're making a software renderer, but it should be somewhat easy in gl - especially if you already handle mdl+md2+md3 in a generic way).

[drm_wayne]

problem is i dont know much about the model code, and i see that my engine has alot different things like SetupAliasBlendedFrame etc, which isnt
in QuakeForge. I already sended the developers a mail, i hope they can help me adding this stuff.

[frag.machine]

TBH I wonder if it's a good idea to work with a model format so obscure. The supposed advantage of avoiding vertex wobbling can be obtained with md3, a fairly well known standard format nowadays, supported by a good number of tools.

[drm_wayne]

MD3 takes too long to load because of the normal calculating..
Oh well, i think i stay with MD2 then

[frag.machine]

[drm_wayne]

[Spike]

what are pitch+yaw for? why do you need those?

[drm_wayne]

This is the original loader from JoeQuake, i didnt added anything.