not when animating in MED.. right?

as far as i know a7 pro doesnot have that too .D (i mean there is no way to set vertex/bone weights and attach a vertex to multiple bones. In MED, that is.)

but you can import from fbx.

yes i knw that much but that feature would be helpful to MED but shouldnt be a need really, afterall... most 3d engine packages dont even include a model editor

I hope that A8 doesnt demand me to upgrade my hardware too

You can't compare animating a model in MED and animating a model with Blender for example : it's day and night
In Blender you have options to visualise bones, you can paint weight, it auto calculate frames between IK keys etc ... etc ...
And Blender is free, with a new more friendly version incoming.


I really don't see the use of MED, it can be good for beginners in game making , or little tasks, but when modeling , animating serioulsy it's a pain ot use and can't compare with specialised tools.

That's Great News, thanks for the Info

Some questions:

- When will be a new A8 Logo, Artwork Contest?
- Have the Beta Tester unlimited access to the new A8 Beta Version (not the final release version) without restriction, like Pro Version etc?
- The new streaming textures feature (MegaTextures), will be implemented in the A8 Beta Version?

I was thinking the same, but MED is a great tool for importing models. In most GameEngines you either have direct fbx/colloda/etc importer or exporters for MAX. not eveyone has max. Problem of direct importing is that everytime something goes wrong while importing(or exporting), you have to go back your 3d package and figure out what could be wrong, because everything seems fine in the 3d program. With med, you can see what is wrong, and fix most of them in med, if it is not a very big problem.

When I saw this topic I first thought of a noob asking whether he should wait for some (hypothetical) A8 or buy A7 now. Some random thoughts:

- Compared to the UDK, Unity or all other engines that come into my mind, 3dgs toolset is like 1980 (like many posters already said)
- 3dgs power lies in the low learning curve (with tuts and all), but with an up-to-date toolset this could be strengthened
- Feature wise (graphics, scripting, ...) it's not "next-gen", but acceptable (though you could get some more power by using OGRE, Lua, Python, ...)
- Lua, Python, Angelscript, ... would take the lang devtime you spend into litec from you and at the same time offer more stuff to toy with for the bloody beginners (OO, threads, stackless py )
- Also using OGRE (or appropriate libs) whould spare time to spend on rendering because then thousands of ppl work for you for free
- Maybe instead of providing templates, provide finished minigames the users can learn from and change
- Good step in the right direction to use PhysX and to switch to openal

Just my 2 cents. 3dgs is nice for beginners, buy has too many potholes for serious, professional users.

Ok i'll add my 2 cents worth as well.

3DGS's good points, Only a one time price unless you want a major upgrade.
"No royalties or indie to pay" Heaps of free resources, good tuts, models, plugins etc.
Great support from both community and producers of GS. The AUM becuase of it's snippets and workshops.
Consistant updates for free. "Unlike other programs you buy "developers that produce a program and after
a few months or years scrap it and don't tell you. Take icex and world studio for example."
You can virtually start making money from 3DGS in no time. "Low budget stuff or course".
Proberly a few more good points that I can't think of right now.

Bad points. The constant crashes errors and bugs.
As many people have said the editors need a major overhaul.

All in all I am happy with 3DGS I have learned quite a bit over the few years I've had it and I am only getting better.
It's like everything else you try , buy or use, they all have thier bad and good points.
You might switch over to unity or somethings else but I betcha there will be things about them you don't like as well.

Well that's my 2 cents worth,

I like the OGRE idea. A product based on OGRE + Lite-C (needs much better debugging though) + OpenAL + Bullet + ... could be quite awesome. OGRE would bring OpenGL support and probably it would be easier to compete with the huge Unity team. This will never happen though. JCL won't give up his investments in the current engine.

PhysX of course is a lot better than ODE but I am still not convinced that it's the best choice in the long run. They fixed bugs, added features and polished it but it's still noticable that PhysX is originally based on ODE and has some flaws like lacking cylinders.

The biggest problem is the editors. I have no idea how this could be fixed without ditching WED and starting anew.