Ok, I have the need for complex interactive animation in the game I'm conducting concept testing on. Let me give you examples of the type of interactions I'm talking about:

-The "Fireman's Carry" move in Splinter Cell where one character picks up another character and carries him on his shoulders.
-The "Rear Naked Choke" (also known as the "Sleeper Hold" to most people) move in Splinter Cell where one character grabs another character from behind and retains him in the hold.

So, b/c of the complexity of the interaction, and how the positioning of the appendages of each character has to be PERCISE, I came to the conclusion that I need to have 2 models in the same editor window so that I can animate one of them and use the other model as a guide.

I ran into problems however when I tried to get 2 models in MED together. Here they are:

1. When I use the MERGE function (file ->merge), it DOES import the model (MDL7 file), but it DOES NOT import the bones and animation for the merged model.

2. In addition to not importing the bones and animation, the ORIGIONAL model, which was animated before the merge, LOSES its animation. The bone for the first model moves, but the mesh does not move along with the bone.

So basically I can't merge the models with bone animations and I lose the animation work that I did. I am glad that I'm in a testing phase right now and that I just did a simple animation w/ one bone.

Does anyone have any experience, any information, or any tutorial/documentation to point me towards regarding bone animation in MED/3DGS? I am open to using MayaPLE and the exporter if MED can't support my needs.

update:

if anyone is interested, Conitec informed me that there isn't a way to merge animation or bones in MED.

*points finger to the horizon*

"To Mayaaaaaaaaa!"