Glad you got it to work and reported back here.

Originally posted by 44 Colt:

By the way, I tried using crowbar 0.24 and it explicitly told me that it couldn't find the folder, which is what gave it away, whereas the 0.29 one said "compilation finished"

Hmm, that slipped through my testing. I'll be sure to put that back in.

Try installing Counter-Strike Source, where the actual compiler (that Crowbar calls) is.

I just now used Bleander 2.7.5 and Blender Source Tools 2.5.3 to import the "survivor_coach.qc" from the Crowbar-decompiled model of Coach from L4D2. It loaded everything just fine.

Most likely the mess you saw was a bad animation file that was part of what the QC loaded and not a problem with Blender Source Tools.

I can think of 3 major reasons to keep a decompile tool separate from Blender.

1. Lots of work to get a Bender plugin to read and process MDL and related files -- a process perhaps more difficult to do in a plugin rather than a separate program.
2. Speaking as the developer of Crowbar, we have a good division of labor of Artfunkel working on his tool and I on my tool.
3. Users of other 3D-modeling tools need a decompiler as well. :P

Originally posted by Vintage:

Originally posted by ZeqMacaw:

I made the change in Crowbar 0.24 to write the full path if that is what was found in the MDL file because that's the data that was used to make the MDL.

Oh, so that's actually completely intentional. I think it's a stupid change, since $CDMaterials...

To avoid other problems and for learning what others actually used to make a model, writing what was actually used to make the MDL seemed best overall.

In MDL version 48 studiomdl.exe source code, the length limit seems to be 260 (which probably corresponds to the limit used by Windows).

I just tested a TF2 model with Crowbar 0.24 and 0.19 using Blender 2.73 with BleST 2.4.1.

The model can be found here in TF2: tf2_misc_dir.vpk -- models\workshop\player\items\medic\robo_medic_physician_mask

With Crowbar 0.24, the full path of the material name is listed in the mesh SMD files (reference and lod1). Example:
models\workshop\player\items\medic\robo_medic_physician_mask\robo_medic_physician_mask

With Crowbar 0.19, only the file name is listed in the mesh SMD files. Example:
robo_medic_physician_mask

I made the change in Crowbar 0.24 to write the full path if that is what was found in the MDL file because that's the data that was used to make the MDL.

My guess is that the full name is being clipped in BleST, but should not be. I am not sure what the length limit is for the material name.

Ugh. This might be a problem with the latest Crowbar (0.24), as indicated in this GameBanana thread[tf2.gamebanana.com].

Please upload the original (MDL and related) files for the model that is giving trouble so we can troubleshoot and fix the problem.

Thanks, Artfunkel. Much appreciated.

:)

Update: I tried the same steps on the latest Blender (2.73a) with the latest Blender Source Tools (2.4.0). Same results as described above.

Has anyone else seen this, or even tried this? Am I the only one that ever looks at one-frame animations? Am I missing something in Blender?