But not with 100% accuracy. It's easy to go from quads to tris. Not so easy to go from tris to quads.

Cool! Link me when you are finished.

Don't think that's a stupid question. It's not exactly intuitive until you think about it.

What is the least amount of points to make a flat polygon (face)?

1? No that would just be a point.
2? No that would be a line.
3? Yup! You can definitely make a single flat surface no matter what as long as the three point vectors are linearly independent.
4? Nope. You can technically have non-faces with 4 points.

Let's take a look:

From the top, both these polygons look flat (left is a quad, right is a tri):
http://i.imgur.com/BSCQ9PB.png

However, you'll notice that from a different angle, the 4-faced polygon isn't actually flat...
http://i.imgur.com/lCLn9w2.png

3D Programs can work with quads just fine, but engines limit their models to tris because that is the minimum amount to make faces. When you export your own models via the smd exporter, you'll notice that it automatically triangulates your model (Try it: Export a test model as an smd file > import it back into blender > suddenly it will be made up of tris instead of quads).

Obviously modelers don't model with tris... They model with quads first, and then go in and detail (manually editing stuff, sculpting, etc).

Haters gonna hate.

Glad it worked out.

It let you upload a normal map that was 512x512? I didn't realize that was an option.

Um... good question. Traditionally I would just use "$normalmapalphaphongmask 1" in the vmt... but I'm not sure how to do it with the new importer. I know for sure it's possible. Give me a sec to find out.

The phong mask is an alpha channel. It can be either tucked away in your base texture or it can be located in your normal map. Either way it has to be an alpha channel.

This channel only allows for greyscale colors, and as you can imagine, parts that are dark will be dull and parts that are white will appear shiny/bright. Typically with the source engine you specify where the phong mask is in the .vmt file (such as using $basemapalphaphongmask 1); however with the new importer you can just checkmark the box that says Base Map Alpha Phong Mask (first checkbox).[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Go right ahead. I think it would help people. I just can't remember the last time weapons were legitimately added (not reskins).

Not that I know of. You could always do it manually!