[Tesla-Chrono]

Ok I just dowloaded a mod to cos i'm bored and looking through one of the models in the big file that I extracted I found that it's skin comprised of two seperate tga files!?

There was a Top Down view image of the Jet and a Side view image, How on earth is this possible? I thought you could only skin the whole thing with one tga file?

If someone could answer this then you would make my day cos this sounds like the easiest way ever to skin something.

Thank you inadvance.

[EvilViking]

Very simple, the aircraft was divided into multiple parts. Load up the model in gmax and check it out for yourself.

[Tesla-Chrono]

As in it was grouped into 2 pieces?

I loaded it up but i see no difference, what am I looking for exactly?

[EvilViking]

Yup, or maybe more.

[Eradicator]

You can have multiple textures for one w3d. Simply apply another texture...
Or the model could be spilt into multiple w3d files, but it's probably just two applied textures.

[Kelso]

You can have as many skin files as you want to a mesh. When you go to skin it, break it up into different parts before applying the UVW Unwrap modifier. Then you can apply it to each part seperately. The reason you didn't see a difference when you loaded it into RenX is because after the skins are done the pieces can be re-attached and they will retain their UVW information

[Straxovich]

just think... every model is made up of more than one tga file!
you have one for the model... and more for the effects.

it seems pretty pointless making more than one tga file for the model because it uses too much memory doesn't it? i mean if you have two tga files for every one model then that would be twice as much memory! assuming that all the tga files are the same size.

i usually use one 256x256 for the model, one tiny tga for the tracks, and one for each fx (turretfx, light etc)
if it's a building i might go 512x512

[Kelso]

Save them as .dds because they're faster than .tga. And you can really trade off on detail so the game won't slow down that much. More skin files means that the skin can hold more detail which means that you don't have to use as many polygons in your models.

[Tesla-Chrono]

Yeah but how do you apply the DDS to the model?

Renx, gmax and 3dsmax which i all own does not support the drag and drop of a DDS file onto the model, Its only TGA that it will allow and is recognised.

I have only ever been able to do this method with TGA's as I have no idea how you apply the DDS file to the model.

[Airstriker]

Save it as TGA, then resave the texture as DDS.