Quake III Model .md3
Quake III models. Tagged parts stitched into one character.
What an .md3 file holds
MD3 refined Quake II’s approach: still vertex-animated rather than skinned, but a model is split into separate pieces (head, torso, legs) joined at named tags so the engine can drive them independently. Every Quake III character, weapon and map model uses it, and the format outlived the game through Return to Castle Wolfenstein and a long tail of mods.
Commonly seen in: Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, OpenArena, idTech 3 mods.
| Data | Stored in MD3 |
|---|---|
| Geometry | Yes |
| Materials and colour | Yes |
| Texture maps | Yes |
| Animation and rigs | Yes |
| Scene hierarchy | No |
| Read here | Yes |
| Written here | No |
Tested against a real file
The last sweep loaded watercan.md3 from Assimp test models with its 2 sidecar files through the viewer on this site: 78 triangles across 1 meshes and 1 materials, in 2.3 seconds. Every format's result is on the test results page, run 2026-09-08.
Convert MD3 to another format
Every pairing has a page saying what survives the trip.
Other things to do with an .md3 file
Questions about MD3
How do I open an .md3 file?
Drop it into the viewer on this site and it opens in the browser, with the scene tree, the materials and the mesh statistics. Nothing is uploaded. If you want it in another program instead, convert it to GLB, which almost everything reads.
Is MD3 a good format to archive in?
MD3 carries geometry, materials, textures and animation, so an archive copy keeps nearly everything. The usual caveat applies: a format is only as future-proof as the readers that exist for it, and .md3 is well served.
Does converting MD3 lose quality?
Geometry is copied vertex for vertex, so the shape does not degrade. What gets lost is whatever the target format has no field for: convert to STL and the materials go, convert to OBJ and the animation goes. The comparison table on each converter page says exactly which.
Formats that hold the same things
Or go back to the full format reference.