Reality Factory

hi i do not have mikshape and do not intend to buy milkshape. as i use gmax and gamespace for my modeling, but i need a converter to convert half life .mdl files into a format for either gmax or gamespace.
please help

Milkshape is pretty much the only thing out there that can do as you ask that is within a decent price range. There aren't any free tools that I am aware of that can do that. Google returns links to Milkshape or 3D Studio MAX when "Convert mdl to 3DS" or "Convert mdl to MAX".

These might be of some use:

http://www.fpsbanana.com/tools/842
http://www.davidhsmith.net/

i have found a great program to convert not just .mdl half life models but all kinds of models and textures.
the program is called biturn
if you use gmax or another 3d model program that is not milkshape you must get biturn to convert all your files.

You can get a program called Q2modeler from this link: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14893

It will allow you to convert a Half-Life MDL model to a Quake2 MD2 or 3DS model. Then you can use one of the MD2 or 3DS gmax importers found at the following link to import the model to gmax.

http://www.davidhsmith.net/Essential_Tools.htm