About mat files and making new textures...

[frozen]

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Preparing to create the MAT file.

Here is a step by step guide explaning how to make a mat file in milkshape:

We know that we have 5 custom textures that need to be put into a mat file already, so with that knowledge, i will create 5 primitives (boxes, spheres, whatever your fancy. The shapes do not really matter) in milkshape:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...in/matfile7.png

As you can see, i have 5 seperate meshes ready for usage. The next step involves making 5 new materials in milkshape. Click on the materials tab,

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...in/matfile8.png

You now need to assign the texture to each material. To do this, click on the button that says none that is found right underneath the emissive and specular buttons. This will open a new window. You will need to navigate to the folder where you saved the .dds textures, and once you have it selected, click open

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...in/matfile9.png

When you do this, the material ## will have the new texture you made assigned to it, you can visually confirm this by looking at the material sphere which should have your texture open. The next step is to rename the texture to the same name as the texture you opened. To do this, have a look at the image below:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...n/matfile10.png

Once you rename your first texture, repeat these steps again and again until you have all your textures open:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...n/matfile11.png

As you will notice, i have given all the textures completely new, unique names that differ from the names used by vanilla textures. Reason is, if you have the same name for textures, when you put your model ingame, it will end up having a serious case of texture swapping so bad, even wife swappers would be put to shame.

ALWAYS USE UNIQUE NAMES FOR NEW TEXTURES. Since this texture set belongs to the same family (so to speak), i gave them the same prefix of new_...

Now, the next step involves you assigning your materials to each primitive mesh you made. To do this, click on the groups tab, select the first name in the list, and click on the select button.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...n/matfile12.png

Next, click on the materials tab again, click once on the first material in your list, then click on the assign button. If you did it correctly, youll see the texture assigned to the mesh in your perspective view.

This is your first texture assigned. You need to repeat this procedure for ALL the textures, HOWEVER, you need to assign each texture to each different primitive. To deselect the first mesh, go back to the groups tab, with your first group selected, click on select again to deselect it. In your list, click the second name, then click on select, and so on and so forth.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...n/matfile13.png

Once completed, you screen should look something like this:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj...n/matfile14.png

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