I've started to use a combination of both textures and material colors.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

The results seems to compliment each other. I mostly texture areas where I want more detail like decals and such. Other large areas I leave them with just the plain material colors I applied in TS 7.6. The results are clean and relatively simple too.

I've also begun to use translucent cockpits and started adding faux pilot figures visible inside giving the feel of ships that look well um occupied. Making simple pilot figures can be made from spheres and shaped cubed objects to form the body parts of the pilots. One scout model has this and it looks quite realistic ingame. I plan on adding pilot figures to most of my future models as it sets them somewhat uniquely apart from other models that I've seen already. I also found that body parts like pilot heads and arms can be linked to turret X and Y objects to achieve simulated body movement. I did this on my bike model; the upper torso of the pilot body pivots on the Y axis, the arms move up and down, and the head tilts up and down along with the arms on the X axis. I love modeling even if i never decide to make a mod of my own. BNG.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

As I mentioned about using a combo of both textures and materials could anyone please suggest how to apply a transparent (perhaps) TGA texture over the model geometry like a decal? I know that the Alpha channel can be manipulated to make certain areas opaque while other areas are completely transparent. I have GIMP, and Paint.net both support TGA for modulating the A channel. I use the UV editor in TS 7.6 which outputs to an external paint program. How would I go about doing this? Would planar mapping be the best choice for decal type texturing? Tanks, BNG.

[mrtwosheds]

The only way I know is to use the Lighting (alpha channel) effect.
eg mytexture00.pic and mytexturea0.pic
The alpha channel effect can be faded so it is not completely bright all the time, I have used it to shine the balls on my Daleks, reduce the teamcolor effect on some areas and of course as lights.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Bummer, so making textures via the Alpha channel won't really achieve the transparent decal effect I seek? Tanks BNG.

[Red Devil]

Can you make animations for pilots so that they can go prone and crawl?

[mrtwosheds]

Bummer, so making textures via the Alpha channel won't really achieve the transparent decal effect I seek? Tanks BNG.

Just paint it on the texture!

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Pilot animations are possible, but TS 7.6 lacks an XSI exporter RD. I can export animations via several other formats like 3DS, ASC, X, and COB though. I also use a rather dark cockpit transparency to mask excessive pilot detail as there really isn't much...you know a sphere for a helmet, separated face object for the visor, elongated cube for the upper torso, arms drawn with the polyline tool, and legs extruded from the torso object. Really just simple stuff to give the model better visual appeal. I like the effect and the poly count is pretty low too.

What really appeals to me is that this modeling stuff is flowing over to making other stuff like hollow buildings traversable by ships and pilots using existing ODF's with tunnel parameters. I need to force myself to delve into texturing possibilities. If I can just find a way to apply transparent textures like decals over my models I would be one happy camper.

[mrtwosheds]

Just thought I would throw in a recent discovery here, as BNG mentioned traversable buildings.
Building collision objects, using my technique at least, are much better when made by conversion from .obj rather than .3ds.
The .3ds exporter in lithunwrap insists on triangulation, the .obj exporter does not. The collisions made from .obj are less glitchy and work much better than those made from 3ds.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

You know what really has me baffled is a GT I'm working on now. It works okay, but for some strange reasons I can't even enter it to mount the gun via the terminal. The closest that I can get to it is the terrain object par1meter then all I hear is that silly crash sound and pilot moaning; like when you bump into solid objects. I tried removing the collision__hc and terrain__h objects to no avail. Guess I'll eventually figure out what the problem is with a little help from my BZII mod buddies.

[mrtwosheds]

It is also important to get the terrain part absolutely flat at 0.

[TheJamsh]

you know you shud change youre name back to Bump N Go... like the old days

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Like liqour BNG's quicker TJ...LOL. Anyways, I think I found out why at least in part the tower is inaccessible. Some how Threed turned the terrain__h name into terrain as the object name when I converted it from X to XSI. It seems to have problems with translating __whatever. I'll try changing in manually in NP and see if rhat makes any dif. BNG.