Quake3World

Is there any reasonable pipeline for exporting a character for use with Q3A from Maya without having to buy additional software? The answer will pretty much decide whether I can use Q3's engine for my own project, and I really want to be able to do that. (I cringe every time Unreal's level design tools come to my mind)

You could save your model as an .obj file and export it using Blender and an MD3 exporter plugin

OBJ doesn't support skeletal rigs or animation, and I prefer to do that in Maya rather than the rollercoaster of an interface Blender is, so that's out.
It's looking even more and more like it's Unreal time for me :< No other ideas? Autodesk changed the Maya scripting recently so old plugins won't work either.

Does Maya export to .ase or is there a plugin to .ase? Q3Data.exe will convert .ase to .md3 as part of id Software's pipeline.

Maya has some fine plugins for it, but again ASE isn't a skeletal format either. (I use it for static objects)
No, I think that porting Radiant maps to other engines is easier than porting animated models into Quake.

ASE --> MD3 was how id Software created the player models for Q3. Once the skeletal system is set up and animated in Maya, wouldn't the exported results without skeletal system look the same?

Wait a sec... it can contain animation, it's the plugin I'm using that exports static only. I think that my chances of finding a plugin for it are better than for MD3, so I might give it a shot. Thanks.