After the mesh, skeleton, textures, and animations are saved into source files, a qc file must be set up. The qc file is a set of commands to the studiomdl tool describing where the model's files are and how the model should behave in-game.

The process of running the studiomdl tool on a qc file is called compiling. The studiomdl tool compiles the source files into the various model files used by the game. That is, it uses the information in the qc, smd, and vta files and creates the mdl, phy, vtx, and vvd files that will be used directly by the game from a vpk addon file.