The worst enemy of conversion is corruption. An "odol converter" worth its salt will run a checksum validation post-conversion to ensure the output file is not corrupted.
These are human-readable and can be opened directly in Object Builder or Blender. odol converter
There are many benefits to using an odor converter, including: The worst enemy of conversion is corruption
The "binarized" version. Developers use a tool called binarize to convert MLODs into ODOLs, which are compressed and optimized for fast loading by the game engine. odol converter
Several iterations and versions of these tools exist, often developed by members of the modding community: