I was just going through the comments on the DevMaster site, and one thing I've noticed nearly everyone agrees on, 3DGS proponents and protagonists alike, is that MED is crap.

Could MED be replaced by a tool for previewing, LODing, setting materials and (most importantly) file conversion?

You could keep the current modeling features in there, but just have them as an option for last minute editing after bringing models in from a 3rd party program. It seems a waste to develop it further since there are better modeling programs that are very cheap or even free.

Basically, my suggestion is to change the priorities for MED from modeling to conversion.

When I had A4, the MED in 6.31 was otherwise the same. The only (that's right, only) considerable changes made were the addition of terrains, bones animation, and support for true color. The overall design is virtually unchanged. I don't recall the exact version of A4 it was. The skin edittor is practically the exact same in 6.31, the overall method to design things is otherwise the exact same. Even my "how to make levels in MED" tutorial applies considerably well for A4.

However, compared to A4, WED has quite a few changes and the engine itself, most especially, has more changes. The reason why MED is often though of as bad and not worth it is likely because it hasn't progressed anything. It's always WED, or the engine getting updates while poor MED gets left in the dust. I've been so fond of using MED, but even now, with all the annoyances, limitations, and bugs, I'm now starting to look into another modelling application. I repeatedly bring up suggestions (and the same ones) for how to make more worthy improvements.

There are quite a few major improvements that would make me use MED again. When using primitives, setting the size for each axis (rather than the confusing system used now with the ultra narrow input fields - a size of 12 with 18x9 edges doesn't mean 12 quants diameter, it's unpredictable and the size values indicated (32.000 for each for a sphere at the default settings) cannot be changed. Having tool options for each tool and in all modes would definitely prove useful. Only the move tool in vertex mode has any user-configurable options, that's it. Rather than having the tool options on the bottom, have them on the left side as there's plenty of space over there where a manager system could go for easy, instant access where any skins, group lists, and any tool options can be displayed, much like WED does. The last thing is when creating UV maps. Currently, there's no dependable way to accurately position skin vertices on a UV map to an exact scale like textures in WED, and it always causes texture misalignment and it looks weird. If I just set the scale to 0.25, the entire object would have the same texture scale and textures would line up properly, especially true for MDL terrains. Just providing these features would make MED much better so others don't have to resort to 3rd party programs constantly (of which I'm now thinking of doing).

yes there are better modellers out there, of course. But even then it is infuriating when you export a model from a certain format, only to find some key polygons not attactched to the mesh, randomly flipped normals and such. Quite a few times I realized it was my other modelling app that screwed up, not MED.

The key thing here is that MED is 100% compatible with the engine, and it CAME with the engine. Plus alot of people wishing to get their feet wet in some 3d game design get their first modelling experience in MED. I worked on an A6 project for school with 3 other students, and it was their first time using a 3d modelling app. When our class started going into Max 8, we were ahead of the game concerning fundamentals in modelling. And I think the majority of the users here are new to game design, correct me if Im wrong.

I dont think Id like to see MED go. It has a warm, buggy place in my heart

I totally agree with jumpman here, eventhough I mostly make my models in different programs, MED is always the last program in which I add the skin and animate it. I do care for it's modeling features, eventhough I hardly use them. They are great for cleaning up models and last minute changes. However I do hope some major improvements are being considered anyways ,

Cheers

I think MED is fine as it is, I like being able to add vertices sometimes, especially for attachment points and whatnot, also scaling, rotating etc.

I dont think anyone should do actual modelling in MED, and all the poeple who say MED is crap think that it is meant to be a full-functioned modeller. Its not nor has it ever been meant to be that.

However, given that, I dont think Contiec should ever bother trying to make it into a real modeller, that would be a huge task in itself, and pointless, when there are plenty of better modellers available. The important thing is better importers and export plugins for other modellers.

The max plugin for example is not so great...that should be fixed up, even for older versions of max like 5.0 (i still use 5.0)..it cant even export 32 bit skin files.

Well, it looks like I was wrong. A lot of people do still like MED.

In any case, I think it would be good if conversions from other formats were prioritsed.

Yes, especially .x model export.

It would be a brilliant idea to make MED a true all in one modeler. 3dgs would have pretty much everything you would ever need to make a game at that point it would be one full studio then.

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Well, it looks like I was wrong. A lot of people do still like MED.

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I hate MED, MED is crap, you can easily get my vote to get rid of it, change it, or replace it.

I only use MED because it's the only modelling program I have and the first one I've used. MED needs several radical changes to it to make it anything worthy. I'm constantly running into bugs, annoyances, limits, and other strange things, of which has now gotten me thinking about getting a third-party modelling program to replace the flawed MED. I'm having a hard time getting into designing in 3D due to all the issues and problems with MED. Short of using thousands of blocks and getting 6 fps frame rates, 2D is currently my only option, short of getting a third-party modelling program.