If anything, the chances are that the model is too detailed in places for quake to handle it well. My suggestion would be to compile it as it stands into mdl format, and see how well the detail is handled. The reason I'd be concerned is the way quake stores the location of vertices.

Basically, the x y and z coordinates of each vertex are given by a single byte, so there's a 256x256x256 grid for the points to snap to. This grid is scaled to the maximum extents of your model in all it's frames. This is why you get model wobble in quake, the rounding errors caused by this practice, and I worry that the detailed face and hands will suffer in quake format like this. So do a conversion and see how it looks. The advice people are giving about having enough triangles at the joints of the models is also important.

While we're on the subject, a few other thoughts about the accuracy of quake model format. The first is that the accuracy is a global thing, it depends on the extent of your model in all of it's frames. So if you want your model to look it's best, keep everything as central as possible. If the model is moving in a run/death animation, make sure it's kept centered on the origin. If you need to have a skin frame(although hopefully most people don't do this any more), make it smaller than the original model. If there's any way you can avoid an abnormally frame in a model, then the rest of the frames will be that much sharper.

You can also, if you have the time and patience, make multi-segment models, for instance a seperate head and body. Since the head will have it's own, much smaller extent, you can cram that much more detail on. Then again, probably not viable for a monster in-game, since there's no tags or weapon_follow to attach things with. It would be a good way to do some machinima stuff though.

A final tip: If you make a dummy frame in your model with vertices at 256 256 256 and -256 -256 -256 in quake units, your model will snap to the grid used for mapping. This would be handy if you wanted to make map models that fit seamlessly with geometry. 

you can avoid an abnormally frame in a model,
you can avoid an abnormally large frame in a model, 

I was planning to ask for some tips in the Help section on the MDL format. Thanks, Preach.

You are right about the shoulder/upper arm connection and also the knees, Necros. There is still room to slip in polys for deformation purposes, so I'll work on that asap (and also those ugly-ass ears). 

but the proportions seem a tad weird, the arms are almost as big as the legs? I can't pinpoint what could be made to correct it, sorry. :/ 

That was helpful. I kept seeing a problem there too, it is in the size of the arms. They should come down to mid thigh, but these were slightly longer than they should be, and slightly thicker as well.

Here is a corrected version.
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1132/playavetruvian23li.jpg

If you take a look at the familiar sketch, Vetruvian Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
which served as a rule of thumb for proportions for centuries and is still useful, I think you'll see my corrections are now matching up.

In a squared area devided into four equal parts, the nipple line comes to the first 1/4 ratio, the symphysis pubis (just above his weiner) is the mid point, and the midline in his knees hits the 3/4 mark. Also, the arms spread out to the ends of the squared area. This is where I made my correction; the fingertips could spread out far past the squared area before I evened them up.

Thanks again, Bambuz 

Good progress, I'm still pretty convinced your proportions are off though, his legs look too short, but I think the problem is actually that his crotch is much to low, making his legs short, and his torso much too big.
Also, your chest topology is friggin weird, what's up with those long triangles on the side, it's gonna look pretty strange when you start animating if he bends over and stuff, most of the time, simpler topology is always better (this is for hipoly stuff, but isn't so far off, but pelvis-lower torso are ok...
http://born-robotic.net/stuff/girl04.jpg it's not done though, plenty of silly errors in other places). 

was too low aswell. Then I realised he probably isn't naked, so hopefully that'll look better skinned? 

where'd you learn to model like that? 

School (yeah, I guess that's cheating =).
Still much to learn though! (Unfortunatly, not much time to put most of the stuff I learn to personal use...) 

It's obvious that you will use a few percents of the stuff you learnt at school (and also what you will learn if you still ahve to go to school..) in the "real" life (I mean life after school...)

In anyway, I really would like to see the model with its skin: I guess it looks awesome :) 

Unless those are underage tits...
�_� 

You so mean. The polycount quadruples when I put my meshsmooth though!
JPL, I know this stuff will come in handy, just meant I wish I had more time to use now on personal projects. 

BTW, are you still at school, and if yes, which school ? 

Well yeah I'm still in school, it's some 3D Animation/Film school in Paris, part time (en contrat d'alternance), have like 1 week of classes a month, rest of the time I'm at work. 

It explains many things so ;)
Thanks for the infos ... 

Good organic model too.

The chest area protrusions, and shoulders and back as well, on my player model are armored seams.

On the sides, those long polies are just a holding place until I get to working it over with some extensions, 

Is there any chance you could combine all your MDL posts into a few tutorials and post them at QExpo? I'd love to have all the information you've posted all in one spot and organized by topic. :) 

Damn fine, effecient, modeling on the alien chick. Not a wasted poly on the whole body. 

Did someone say underage boobies??? 

Sure, I'll put 'em all together, and edit them nicely. Maybe even put together a proper full tutorial with pictures and stuff. It'll give purpose to the booth at least. 

Raise crotch, lengthen legs, shorten torso.

Lose at least half the polies in the feet.

His profile is off, with the forehead being very far back and the mouth sticking very far forward.

Lose the thin lip edge on the shoulder pads - if you're going to have shoulder pads that thin you can just communicate that edge in the texture. Otherwise, make it big and thick. Same goes for the bottom of the torso armor.

The neck should come more out of the front of the chest than poking out of the top like a chimney.

He needs an edge turning pass to fix the contours, especially the edges shared between the two big pairs of tris where the nipples would be, and the two at the top of the large pair of tris at the bottom of the armor.

All the detail in the head is going to turn into a huge mess in-game. Quake's probably not the engine to model nostrils and ears onto your characters - there were more reasons besides performance that the quake characters all have cubes for heads, like the integerization Preach described. 

that's a quite a check list, and it should keep me busy. I'm wondering if in the neck as shown in #3047 the contours are the reverse of what they should be. I built the neck by extending from the clavicle area, but if it looks chimney pipe like in the shots, I likely goofed it.

I'll decimate the models down to lower polies if in game test show them to be unworkable. At about 1200 faces each, the ghoul and v-weapon flachette came out okay (no substantial animation on the ghoul, the flachette though worked well as a complete replacement for the double barrel SG). 

Always go by existing models in a game when modelling for it. Quake guys have blocks for hands and feet too. I mean, look at shamblers - they walk around on tree stumps.

When someone is standing up perfectly straight their spine will still have an S curve to it. Your neck will tilt forward a good twenty degrees at the shoulder line and curve up into the back of the skull. From a side perspective, the nape of the neck is roughly centered on the peaks of the shoulders. 

I see that now. The nape, instead of being an indented curve as it should be is just a straight slanted slope on my model. It also makes the shoulders look hunched, rounded and weak. No player would want to be that guy no matter how unsavory I make his character!

I remember my sixth grade art instructor yelling at me about making smoke pipe necks, and I thought she had scared them out of me. Glad she isn't around to see that neck. 

To test out concerns that the relatively highpoly player model may be problematic in the Quake engine, I did a rudimentory walk cycle, flailed the arms around a bit, and had him revolve in a circle for the standing frames. I then replaced the soldier model to get him in game. Here is a screenie -

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/926/atmos0000054xq.jpg

Tested with DarkPlaces, there were no problems; AquiRe's revision of the NehQuake engine is the target engine for the mod and the model should work fine there as well.

I've also taken a number of suggestions -- I've pulled the face back into the head and reworked the neck and armor and made the shoulder/arm connection deformable. I still need to add edge loops and structure to the knees.

This is a picture of the wasp

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/4373/waspscreen7bj.jpg

-- an insectoid with a mounted nail gun and lizard head. Though, the lizard skull makes him look more like a dragon, at least without a skin on him. I've fully animated him and have him working nicely in game. I just need to skin him, and change a few things in the QuakeC.