Convert MD3 to GLB
Free, in your browser, with nothing uploaded. Drop your .md3 file in and take the .glb away.
Drop your MD3 file here
.md3 in, .glb out
Choose filesNothing is uploaded No account, no email No file size limit
How to convert MD3 to GLB
- 01
Add your .md3 file
Drag your Quake III Model file onto the drop zone, or click it to browse. Nothing is uploaded: it is read where it already sits.
- 02
Check the preview
The model is parsed on your machine and drawn in the viewport, so a wrong axis or a missing texture shows up before you commit rather than downstream.
- 03
Save the .glb file
Press convert. The glTF 2.0 (Binary) file is written in the tab and lands in your downloads folder. No link, no expiry, no account.
What carries over, and what does not
A format conversion is a translation, and translations lose things. Here is what actually happens when an MD3 file becomes a GLB file.
| Data | MD3 | GLB | Survives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geometry | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Materials & colour | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Texture maps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Animation & rigs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scene hierarchy | No | Yes | n/a |
This is a comparatively lossless pairing: 4 of the five categories above are supported by both formats, so most of what is in your MD3 file has somewhere to go in the GLB file.
About Quake III Model
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. More on the MD3 format page.
About glTF 2.0 (Binary)
GLB is glTF 2.0 packed into a single binary container: the JSON scene description, the vertex buffers and every texture in one file with nothing to lose in transit. It is the format to reach for when you are handing a model to somebody else, embedding it on a web page, or pushing it into a game engine. If you are not sure what to convert to, convert to GLB.
Commonly seen in: three.js, Babylon.js, Godot, Unreal Engine, Windows 3D Viewer, Facebook 3D posts. More on the GLB format page.
How the conversion works
When you drop a file in, the bytes are handed to a parser compiled to run in your browser. The MD3 data is decoded into an in-memory scene graph of meshes, materials and transforms, which is what the preview is drawing. Pressing convert walks that scene graph back out through a GLB writer and hands you the resulting bytes as a download.
The whole round trip is local. The page itself is static: it is delivered once and then does its work offline. That is why the privacy claim is checkable rather than a promise.
MD3 to GLB: common questions
Is my MD3 file uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read by code running inside this browser tab and never crosses the network. You can prove it by disconnecting from the internet before you convert, the page keeps working, or by watching the Network tab in your browser's developer tools while you drop a file in.
How large an MD3 file can I convert?
There is no server-side limit because there is no server. The practical ceiling is your own machine's memory: a browser tab can usually handle models up to a few hundred megabytes. Very dense scans or scenes with millions of triangles will take a few seconds and a lot of RAM.
Why does my converted GLB file look untextured?
GLB does support textures, but the images have to be available to embed. If your MD3 file references texture images that live next to it on disk, drag those images into the drop zone along with the model and they will be picked up.
Does it cost anything?
No. There is no fee, no account, no watermark and no per-file limit. Since the conversion runs on your hardware rather than ours, serving this page costs about as much as serving a blog post.
Does it work on a Mac, on Windows or on a phone?
All of them. There is nothing to install: any browser with WebGL 2 will do, which covers current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on desktop, and Safari and Chrome on mobile. A phone has less memory than a laptop, so a very heavy scene may be the one thing it cannot finish.
Related conversions
Other things to do with the same file.
From MD3:
Other ways to get to GLB:
Or do something else with it: