Med?????

ok, i read a lot about improve Med, nut i thing the biggest improvemend, wich may be done is to do got importer for maya, max blender(althought there is a exporter for blender in the wicki) wings etc with bones and all the stuff.
especially bones would be a great help caus u can acess via c-script!!!
hope to see an great im/export tool in 6.4, and hear whar all u other guys may think about this
cheez
tgm

Basically I like the idea of giving us as much freedom of choice in respect to which modeling tool we'd like to work with, but the other option would be to make MED as good as possible and userfriendly as possible , I doubt most of us even have tools like Maya at their disposal. Importers/exporters always have the disadvantage of needing an update as soon as those 3rd party tools change their formats.
I would like conitec to continue to focus more on improving MED itself, rather then adding all sorts of import/export functions. I've got used to the bones within MED, and even skinning got a lot easier since 6.4.

Cheers

I think so too PHeMoX. MED should be able to do everything needed for editing before improving built-in Import/Export features. 3rd party people always seem to find a way.

Development could consider making the MDL file more versatile in its construct to optimize Imp/Exp in accepting one particular format that is favored when sharing models between all the programs. This might help to produce more consistant results rather than trying to accomodate conversions for many formats.

I'll be needing to make detailed humanoid models and skins in a year or two, hoping that MED will be able to be used for this purpose.

From what I understand it has some limitations in the UVmapping power for such things?

med has limitations anywhere...

Thanks for responding TheGameMaker,

One thing I am curious about... if we can build models in other programs and import them into MED, how is it that MED cannot be used to create them in the first place?

It seems more like texturing, UVmapping and UVunwrapping that is the issue.

Also I've seen plenty of different examples of how bones are used with models, in my own mind I see them used in different ways to get effects.

Is it better to create a model in another program and then use MED to set bones and animations? My concern is loss of precision when converting to MDL format.

@ Ghostwriter: I had no serious problems in creating, skinning and animating nice humanoid models in MED. The 6-sided mapping uses a simple but effective method of projecting the 3D-body to a plane. This will of course result in some distorted faces, but you can compensate this, by dragging the vertices in the skin editor. Most often however you will accept some little distortions for the benefit of triangles that touch each other. You can later paint over the edges, which is often desired.
There are many different model editors, but for me it is more important to be 100 % familiar with one program, than having tried them all.
MED would be my first choice for the obvious advantage that it is (and will be in the future) fully compabible with the leveleditor. It has a workflow and philosophy that is similar, that makes it more easy to switch between these applications (something that I do very often).
So my advice would be: try MED first, and if you don´t like it, and if you have reason to believe, that another program can fasten your work or improve your work in a significant way, try something else.

I can see where PHeMoX and GhostwriterDoF are coming from.
But i personally think that while MED is still lacking in user friendliness and features, That a good set of import/export options should be made to support 3rd party formats. Then focus on getting MED to a more useable form.

You already have import/export features, and they might be improved, but I think it´s an illusion, to expect them to become perfect.
I work for 15 years now with completely different programs in the film- and TV industry. Files are very often exchanged between these API´s. For example I edit a film with an editing program called AVID, then I export the sound files to another program for the final sound mix. Even if both programs come from the same company it will very often be the case, that information gets lost, or distorted. And in the film industry there is even an interchangeable standart format established, called OMF.

Well, considering just a couple weeks ago I didn't know a quant from a keyboard key, I probably shouldn't be posting too much in here

I have done a lot of research on all the modeling programs available. If I had the funds, MED would still be my first choice for setting animations and bones, even with imported models.

Most of these issues are being addressed as we post, it just takes time. It may even implemented before A7

Hm.
Let me throw in my 2 pence here...(ploing!)
Have to agree with GhostWriterDoF.Though I'm sill using Anim8tor for creating the basic mesh, MED has grown stronger over the years. Where it is now shows the right direction.
I've been using it recently to create some plants and look forward to see it developed even further.
If you're new to modelling and are using 3DGS, MED is THE place to start. Especially, when you start to learn skinning.
(had to edit this, due to typos, ops)

Thanks for the advice peoples. For now I'll be learning to use MED and WED as efficiently as possible. Much to learn. Eventually I'll need to enhance my working environment to get the visuals I need.

Robotronic, I'm very interested in doing some 3D animated shorts for cutscenes and other purposes. Would you have any suggestions for a low budget artist?

Ideally it would be compatible with GameStudio since I'm building my working environment around it. I can't think of anything more fun than to model and skin my own characters for stories that I write...

Hi!

Unfortunately I have no own experience with the workflow from the gameengine to a cutscene (which will be probably an edited AVI-File). However since this is something that I´m very interested in, I store each inch of information that I can find. First you´ll need something that can record the images. There has been a thread recently, that mentioned a number of programs:

taksi
fraps
camstudio
camtasia
snag it 7

Some or all of these programs will certainly allow some editing, and I guess, they are not expensive or even freeware. But I have no idea with which resolutions they work.

Film / Video editing software might be more advanced, but here you have to know, that there are exact specifications for image size and fps (frame per second). So I would certainly first look for these tools, I mentioned above.

In AUM 37 (faq) I also found a simple code, for recording. Voilá:

"Paste the code below at the end of your script, and then press "C" to start the capture. Exit the game and you will see many screenshots in your game folder; move them to a new folder and assemble them as a movie using a video editing tool (Animation Shop that comes with Paint Shop Pro, etc).

var shot_number = 1;

starter create_movie()
{
while (key_c == 0) {wait (1);}
while (1)
{
screenshot ("shot_", shot_number);
shot_number += 1;
wait (1);
}
}


Note: "screenshot" instruction is replaced with file_for_screen

file_for_screen("shot.png",123); // save screenshot "shot123.png"

The editing software should be able to import and assemble the jpg´s into a movie-file ...

Use Virtual Dub. I don't think it has support for JPGs (never tried so I don't know - I use BMPs), so save as BMP or TGA instead to compile your animation.

Ok, I'll look into that too ulillillia

Yes Robotronic, I've been looking through those threads too and will research all those programs over the next few months. That code example looks promising for the cutscenes.

Blender doesn't suite my needs and I don't like 3dsmax for several reasons. Actually considering Lightwave for other projects I have in mind for the future. Thanks everyone for your helpful posts.