Oh I see! Ok I will just write the QC file assuming the frame order in the file then. 

Using max feels like I am editing a map and the editor is not drawing the links between entities!

Is there a way to show the object links in the viewports? I know you can see the tree structure with the selection (H) window, just wondered if there was something else more visual? 

not that i know of, sorry.
you can always set helpers/bones different colours to tell significant groups apart (like left/right side limbs so you can tell easily when viewing from the side).
i suppose you could looking into connecting splines to objects with follow constraints to make your own visual representation of links, but that would mean doing it yourself.
sorry, that's the best i've got. :S 

I thought it was me not being able to find the visual switch for displaying links between objects. It really makes understanding bone structures difficult, I am surprised there is no visuals. 

It is a bit annoying, it is supposed to be an option which you can enable on a per object basis (so you could choose to just display the links for the chainsaw but not the bones). The option you're meant to tick is in the display panel, which is the 5th panel along on the right hand side. Down at the bottom is a "Link Display" rollout with a tickbox called "Display Links".

It doesn't seem to work though, so unless you can fiddle with it and get something, I think it's a feature of 3ds max that is broken in gmax and nobody ever tested... 

I was trying to enable the option on my ogre and that didn't work, but creating a simple test scene I was able to create two boxes, enable the option, then link them and see the link. So give that a try. 

Thanks, I found the option and it certainly works on some bones and meshes.

I am at the final hurdle exporting all my frames and mesh into MD3 format and the Gmax exporter wants to UV map all the bones and place them in all the frames. Does not make any sense as usual. I also tried preach's ogre model and gmax exported all those bones as well. Any suggestions why the exporter wants to UV map bones? 

loath as you may be to change the pipeline you got to Sock, I know a couple of people go direct from Blender - Noesis - Quake without additional steps.

If I was to try and create a model in blender, animate it and then convert with Noesis to Q1 format, what versions and plugins do you recommend for blender? 

To get exports to work you have to use the Only Objects Whose Names Starts With option to filter out the bones from the mesh. Bit of a pain, but as long as the mesh starts with a letter other than 'b' it's only one keystroke. I am going to get round to replying to your e-mail as well... 

Noesis supports lots of stuff, so any 3d package can output files to it, which then get passed to any game format you like, including .mdl.

Personally I'm still using Max, and exporting to Collada. I can't remember which version off the top of my head (at the office just now) but in the past I've used various other formats such as FBX.

Should really document the process and put it up on the site when I get time - your comments here got me thinking along those lines the other day. 

sock: try out blender first to make sure you don't mind it.

if you are familiar with mainstream editing packages, it could be painful. 

I keep saying Finally too much, but I think I have my first rough (extremely crap) ogre model animated. Probably the most painful thing I have done in my games life and I after playing red777 yesterday I can't believe the monsters in quoth and how much effort it must of taken to animate them.

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/ogre2.gif

My ogre is suppose to be a similar (style wise) to the Hell Knight. These ogres make the armour for the Hell Knights and they like it so much they have adapted parts to their own needs.

Process:
1. Create model in LW and skin in PS
2. Skin/UV in LW
3. Break model down into mesh/uv triangles
4. Export 3DS format
5. Import to Gmax
6. Weld all mesh/uv triangles
7. Setup bones and weights (borrowed heavily from preach model)
8. Export to MD3 (with object name filter)
9. Compiled it with utility from Preach.
10. Fixed skin with Qme

@Preach, thank you for all the help, I am sure I asked too many stupid questions. No worries on email, I assumed you were busy.

@ijed, that utility you linked is amazing! I just did a quick test from LW scene manager, exported with FBX format and straight to MDL format! one step for animations, mesh and UVs!

My next trip into Q1 modelling is to try a pure LW pipeline with Noesis. I am sure something is bound to go wrong but at least I will get the chance to learn another modelling package animation system. 

@necros, at this point I only know bits of different packages and every application is new to me. I have never done animation stuff before, always done static mesh. The whole process is just one big painful learning curve, but it will get better. I sort of understand animation/bone systems (Max version) now I am going to torture myself by learning LW animation system next! 

That looks fucking awesome! 

About Quake animation is that it's practically pose to pose, you don't have to worry as much about timing.

I'm pretty useless at animation, but a lot of cell animation tutorials have helped - like this one http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml

Nothing special, although I wouldn't want to do it outside my comfort zone of 3dsMax :) 

thanks for posting that ijed. i was going to mentioned traditional animation because it's very relevant (probably even more with quake due to 10fps).

it can even help to do the movements yourself in a mirror to get an idea of where you want your keyframes to be (close your blinds so you neighbours don't think you're insane).

it's about expressiveness. speaking about quoth, the drole was the first monster i animated, and i find his movements are not expressive enough. it's hard to tell what he is doing between running and swinging for melee attacks.

also, regarding death animations, make sure that when they die, they keel over immediatly. again, the drole's death animation is cool, but slow and when watching demos, i almost always see players continue to shoot at droles that are playing their death animations.
it's important to communicate that the monster is dead as quickly as possible.

be expressive, but don't go overboard. if you can communicate what you want in 4 frames, don't take 12 to do it. 

The thing I like about Quake animation is that it does not need to be perfect AAA quality and can have some goofy poses and body movements. The monsters also don't have to follow exact anatomy guidelines and have some funny shapes like crazy fat arms.

The hardest thing about modelling Q1 monsters for me is knowing how to setup the skeleton. Example layouts of bone structures was something I struggled with for a long while and had to do a bit of research with gmax tutorial examples.

I also can't believe after all this time how little information or tutorials exists on the whole pipeline for creating a monster in quake. I know writing articles is time consuming and painful but there is so much cool information people here know and it is not easy to access. 

Is kind of cartoony at its core. The art is excellent for its time, and many studios now don't have that kind of focus when doing assets.

For example I showed the fiend to someone in the office and they were very impressed at how precise every single vertex was - no waste in the movements, even though looking at it in a 3d package makes it look like a deforming box kite, or even more apt, a papercraft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi3fy3IVA-M

And good advice about the death - I'd add that make sure the monster has a unique death scream sound, that is fired in its first frame of death animation and not easily confused with its other sounds.

Going nonsolid in the same frame is desirable as well.

As to dev documentation, its almost a lost art because of the age of a lot of the processes. I will get round to writing something sooner or later - every now and again I have to bang out a few pages on something just to keep the goals and backstory in mind, might as well be some how-to's for the next one.

At least tools like Noesis open things up a bit and give various routes to getting things right, as opposed to a single one that only works after hours of trial and error. 

A link to the rest of the guy's paper models:

http://cow.mooh.org/paper/

All taken from the original meshes of the monsters.

I think this is called nerdcore :) 

Seems like the links are 404 

or anyone else (stupid enough) modelling q1 monsters in gmax!

Problem 1 - Stationary objects having strange movement between frames
Solution - Double frames

Frame / Description
-2 T Pose
-1 Duplicate of Frame -2 (This extra frame makes sure no 'loose' object movement
0 Standing Pose
1 Duplicate of Frame 0

All frames are affected by previous frames and the double static frame prevents previous movement from affecting new frames. This may well be fixed in modern day versions of max, but gmax is v4 (very old)

Problem 2 - Objects do random 360 rotations between frames
example - http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/ogre1_stupid1.gif
Solution - Use local rotation ONLY

This one had me going round in circles for ages, the default in gmax is view rotation which screws *most* animations. I thought I had some bones rotated/setup wrong and re-created them several times in different ways and it made no difference. It was just the default rotation mode is fuckin useless. (wasted days of time on this stupid default)
Once I used local rotation mode, the animations worked perfectly. 

There's a common problem in regular max when flipping bones, usually to make the right/left side arms/legs.

The flipped versions get a negative scale which breaks most exporters. This can be fixed by using animation/bone tools/mirror mode from the panel.

No idea if Gmax has this panel :) 

I still get the rotation bug almost every time I rotate a bone with gmax. I have rebuilt all the bones every way I can think of, not used mirror and still get constant rotation lock problem. There must be a way to prevent this, otherwise I will never finish animating anything.

After two weeks I finally have an idle animation, I feel like I want to jump up and down with glee, but I know it is just an idle animation, probably the easiest thing to make! (it should be)

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/ogre3.gif
http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/ogre3b.gif (Alternative) 

Armored Ogre ! Very nice ! 

There are ways to avoid using the double frame trick, by setting the tangent type to linear or step. This link is a brief outline, better resources are probably out there:
http://billysalisbury.com/Learn_Max/chapters/lecture6d.htm

The way I try and avoid the random 360 degree rotations is where possible to never rotate the bones! Instead if you move the bone below the target bone in the heirarchy then the IK seems to always perform the shortest rotation.

The track viewer is also sometimes useful to diagnose weird problems, although it's quite overwhelming at first.