Convert Quake 3 Arena models (MD3) online for free
The converter easily converts your MD3 models to various formats - free and online. No Quake III Arena or or other 3D software needed.
To convert other file formats to the "3D Game Model File" file type, you need software like Quake III Arena or a similar tool.
An .MD3 file is a 3D model format originally developed by id Software for the Quake III Arena game engine (id Tech 3). It stores 3D meshes, UV maps, textures, and bone tags used for player characters, weapons, and interactive level items. Aside from Quake, the extension is occasionally used for MikuMikuDance effect plugins or Midas Civil structural engineering project files.
Opening an .MD3 file today usually requires specialized legacy tools like Noesis or MilkShape 3D. You can also use modern software like Blender, but only if you hunt down and install community-made custom importer add-ons.
The .MD3 format is obsolete and extremely restrictive for modern 3D work. It relies on vertex animation rather than skeletal animation, meaning it stores the exact position of every vertex for every frame. This results in bloated file sizes for complex animations and makes the files fundamentally incompatible with modern game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine. Furthermore, the format imposes strict hardcoded limits, such as a maximum of 8,192 vertices per surface and limited frame counts.
To use these legacy assets in modern workflows, you must convert them. For game development and active 3D editing, convert to FBX or GLTF to maintain structure, though you will need to bake animations. For 3D printing or extracting static meshes, convert to OBJ or STL. Drag and drop your file here to analyze and convert it - free, online, and without installing software.
Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your MD3 file.
Users also converted OBJ, FBX, PNG, PK3, LXF, STP and MD2 files.
If you want to convert MD3 file to EXE, ISO, BIN, CUE, PAK, WAD, PK3, PK4, BSP, MAP or SAV, you can use Quake III Arena or similar software from the "Vertex-animated 3D Game Models" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MOD, BIN, CFG, SCX, DAT, MPQ, LOG, CUE, INI, EXE, SCM or ISO files to MD3, try Quake III Arena or another comparable tool in the "Vertex-animated 3D Game Models" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our MD3 converter.