Blizzard MDX Import/Exporter

With the WarCraft III World Editor, Blizzard Entertainment has provided the community around its games an excellent means of creating additional maps, campaigns and new gaming experiences to share with other users. The use of standard formats such as text files and slk spreadsheets has greatly magnified the ease in which the community can edit things that they cannot accomplish with the World Editor alone.
This is not and has never been in debate.

However, Blizzard Entertainments MDX polygon model format, a compressed format that contains within it an ASCII model format under the file extension MDL, is still to this day unable to be easily edited by the community without extensive work. Several attempts by members of the community to develop tools and parsers that would allow for direct model import and export through Discreets 3D Studio MAX and tools such as Milkshape 3D have met with limited success.

In any modification or expansion project graphics-before gameplay or storyline-are first and foremost the part that attracts players and impresses them prior to release. In order to create additional jaw-dropping graphics for these community projects, it is a requirement that the developers behind maps and expansions to Blizzard Entertainments games be capable of creating additional models in MDX/MDL format, the format recognized by the WarCraft III graphics engine.

Any previous contact with modelers or other artists from Blizzard Entertainment has suggested to us that Discreets 3D Studio MAX was utilized for the creation of unit and building models for WarCraft III: The Reign of Chaos and WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne.

We, the Undersigned, feel that in keeping with Blizzard Entertainments promise and commitment to the growth of an editing community around its games, is obligated to freely release and distribute the tools necessary to create MDX models from within standard 3D modeling applications, preferably Discreets 3D Studio MAX.
We are willing to accept a plug-in, script, or standalone conversion application, provided the tool provided is not limited in any way, able to convert animations, geometry, particle emitters, cameras, and lights as normally exist within MDX models included with the retail game. We expect no more support in the use of these tools from Blizzard Entertainment than that which was provided for the WarCraft III World Editor, as ours is a community of many helpful and intelligent individuals.