Iris2.de

looks like chainmail with plate helm and gloves to me. The models in these screens look different than above.

i can't really say that i'd like them better than the mondains legacy models =(

Fair enough, maybe you had to play the Third Dawn version for your self to really know, I was personally Blown away by it, but you know that's me heh.
Only a suggestion anyway, I have no idea how hard it would be to get them to show with the current granny viewer or whatnot, but if it's not that hard you could try it I guess and see for yourself. Meh.

oh well, can't hurt to have a quick look at the fileformat. is there a third dawn trial installer somewhere ?

Old Iris 1 used AOS granny models, i believe it used old third dawn models just in first stages of its development.
The main difference is that third dawn human models are made from 1 model(like every monster), AOS models instead are build with different body parts.
However i prefer how AOS models look, third dawn models seem too "old".

how does equipment work if they are just one-part ?
it'd be an awful lot of models if there was one for every combo....

i can give you the old uo:td cd.

are they not available for download like the third dawn ones ? then it wouldn't make much sense to implement support for them, as most freeshard players won't own third dawn.

i think uo:td is not for download anymore.
But maybe it's usefull for us to have an example how they manage it to use items with only one main character model!?

the uo:td models:
http://sience.schattenkind.net/uotd_Models.zip