Loading MD3

Although it seems likely that it''s the same one you claim "seemed to have bad information" from your post''s contents, I successfully wrote a MD3 loader based on the information in this file format description a couple weeks ago.

You probably just didn''t understand the file format. You aren''t going to actually find the words "VEC3" in the md3 file, you know.

~CGameProgrammer( );

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i didnt.... i thought they were flags that would say to my loader (or anyone elses) "here comes a vector" if not... then im confused... lol well ima look at it again... it may make more sense than i think...
-Dan

check out gametutorials.com

http://www.gametutorials.com/download/OpenGL/MD3Loader_OGL.zip

http://www.gametutorials.com/download/OpenGL/MD3Animation_OGL.zip

No, they''re not flags. I''ll explain... let''s look at the first three data items in the MD3 file:

quote:

---

Null and Void''s link:
S32 IDENT Magic number. As a string of 4 octets, reads "IDP3", as unsigned little-endian 1367369843 (0x51806873), as unsigned big-endian 1936228433 (0x73688051).
S32 VERSION MD3 version number, latest known is 15, but use the constant MD3_VERSION
U8 * MAX_QPATH NAME MD3 name, usually its pathname in the PK3. ASCII character string, NUL-terminated (C-style). Current value of MAX_QPATH is 64.

---

Translation:
The first four bytes (32-bit signed integer, or "S32" as the website calls it) are used to indicate the file is an MD3 file -- the bytes appear as ''I'', ''D'', ''P'', and ''3''.

Next comes a signed 32-bit integer that indicates the version number.

Next is an array of unsigned bytes ("U8" meaning 8-bit unsigned) that indicate the name of the MD3. The size of the array is 64 (MAX_QPATH would be defined only in an official id Software header file, so you have to just know it''s 64 it if you''re coding from scratch). Because the website says the string is null-terminated, but it''s U8 * MAX_QPATH characters long, that means the string is followed by a bunch of 0s until MAX_QPATH is reached. If MAX_QPATH was 16, then the string would look like this:

"Player.md3······"

where "·" represents the null character ("\0").

~CGameProgrammer( );

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