From Milkshape to MED

I am having the absolute worst time getting models from Milkshape into MED. I'm finding myself going through 3 or 4 different import/exports and other ridiculous nonsense, and still not having models work correctly. Here's some of my problems if anyone knows where I can find answers:

1) Whenever I save a model in Milkshape as MDL7, the textures become blue in MED and the animation is lost

2) Is it possible to set up a .qc file for MDL5 with multiple skins for MED? MDL5 format seems to retain the animation from Milkshape, but I can't get it to work with more than 1 texture file.

3) When I use a MDL7 file in WED, it textures it incorrectly even when it shows up fine in MED. It just uses 1 texture to cover the entire thing.

Thanks for any help.

Try to export your model to Milkshape ASCII format, then import it to Med and save as MDL7.

I hope that will help.

When I do this, it looks perfect in MED and even retains the animation, but once I load it into WED and run the level, the texture on it is entirely black!

Are MDL7 models supposed to work with multiple textures, or do you HAVE to pack everything into one large texture?

Had a lot problems with import/export Milkshape/MED too. Would be interested into a solution.

What format you use for the textures?

All are .BMP.

Have you tried to reload those textures in med after importing your model?
Do you just import your model, save it as .MDL7 and use it in WED?

I had been just importing and using, but I just tried reloading all the model's textures from the project texture directory, and unfortunately it still gives it a pure black texture.

Thanks for all your ideas though, they've been good ones. This is so frustrating, I don't understand what's causing the problems.

Well, i haven't worked with models with multiple skins in Med and Wed, so i can't really help you with them.

Have you tried to apply only one texture, and see if it still shows in black?
Maybe you are using a scripted material on your model in your game script? If not, maybe you should write one.

Did you try expoting to .x (from Milkshape) and then importing the .x file into MED? (you could also try expoting to 3ds)

EDIT: I just tried myself...Exporting from Milkshape to Milkshape-ASCII and importing the file in MED works best for me! It keeps both, animation and groups (including multiple uv sets). This should definately work for you

This may or may not be helpful but, from what I remember of the MS3D File Format (and the ASCII Export), the UV Coordinates are saved/exported backwards. I'm not sure if the MED Importer corrects this or not.

But this is using experience from a few years ago, though Mete hasn't changed his file format since.

FixxeR