Does BZII support texture layering?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Truespace supports adding multiple textures in it's material editor controls, i.e., overlaying more then one texture map via setting the transparency controls to less then 100%. Basically it looks like it just blends them so that there all visible when applied to the model geometry as a texture. I'm not sure, but I guess I'm trying different stuff to make my models look a bit better using overlaid textures to enhance them visually. Will the game engine choke on this type of texture application? Tanks, BNG.

[GSH]

BZ2 generally uses one texture per model, though you can add a glowmap texture or bumpmap texture. You can not adjust transparency for the layers.

If you want "layers," bake them into the model's base texture in photoshop.

-- GSH

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Cool, apparently TS must bake them as they appear just fine in game after mapping them on to the model geometry in the modeler. I'm attempting to figure out a way to apply decal looking decorations over a textured base texture with the decals layered on top added as a second sub layer. So far this has been the most difficult part of the model making process. I have a ton of finished models that need to be skinned. Now I really need to focus on learning to actually paint far better then I currently can. I suppose that's why I've posted a lot of inquiries on how use painting techniques to simulate 3 dimensionality on essentially flat 2d surface. Not an easy task, but one that eventually should produce some decent model skins. PS: TS claims to support texture baking although I don't yet comprehend this concept currently. What is texture baking? Tanks, BNG. 

[GSH]

What is texture baking?

Just like real-life baking -- combining a bunch of ingredients (textures) into one output item (texture), in such a way that makes it really hard to go back to the original ingredients. Or, as someone said, "it's really hard to go from scrambled eggs & bacon back to a chicken & a pig."

-- GSH

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

TS, handles the 2 combined textures as a procedural map and generates a single combined file with a name like procmat12 when it exports the texture along with the model geometry. Is this the same as baking a texture? Or is this done with other elements like scene lighting and such? A single map is what I'm after using a standard UV map layout as a base guide from which to paint decorations and such.

[mrtwosheds]

I suspect not, I know the xsi format bz2 uses can have more than one texture entry/layer on any one frame, but I don't think bz2 will use more than 1, I would not want it to either! (heavy blending process!)
I would not imagine that TS will make one texture out of 2, it will be producing a "material". That is like the texture, frame color, specular, ambient and reflection data all combined to make 1 material.

Bz2 also makes materials! if you make 2 different models that just happen to use the same texture and settings, bz2 decides that this is one material not 2 different ones on two different models, this can lead to unexpected things happening...

My daleks all have a glowing eye on the end of their eyestalks At first I made dalek01.dxtbz2 and daleka1.dxtbz2 skins and just used this to texture several models all over, incuding the glowing eye__e frame. A few models later I noticed that some of them came out unlit (glowing) all over, and I could not see why it was happening. The models looked fine in the xsi. Bits that should not be glowing were glowing.
Materials! optimised by bz2.
Now I use 1 particular texture-material for all the glowing eye frames and other texture-materials for their body's.

You need a photoshop type program that does layers so you can blend your textures together to make 1 texture.

[OvermindDL1]

The way BZ2 works with textures is that whenever it encounters a texture it first looks it up in an internal map based on name.  If it finds it then it just loads what is already there and ignores what the model specifies.  The reason for this is that the rendering queues are based on the textures, the more textures then the slower the renderer (the largest hit to rendering speed is the number of textures, the poly count does not hit anywhere near that).  If the texture does not already exist then it creates one and fills out its settings based on the material settings in the model that is currently being loaded.

A consequence of having materials indexed based on name instead of dedicated material files like most games use is that it is capable of overriding *every* texture in the game by just loading a certainly crafted xsi before any other.  You could quite literally change the look of *everything* by just loading a specifically formatted xsi.
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[Nielk1]

A consequence of having materials indexed based on name instead of dedicated material files like most games use is that it is capable of overriding *every* texture in the game by just loading a certainly crafted xsi before any other.  You could quite literally change the look of *everything* by just loading a specifically formatted xsi.

Some elaboration please, like, how exactly to form this XSI...

[OvermindDL1]

XSI's can contain a material only section that allows you to define materials, BZ2 will still use that.  Or just make a lot of little 1 poly shapes or whatever simple else and have different materials for each.  If you could somehow have that be loaded before anything else, like a shell rotating planet, or perhaps a recycler...
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[BNG Da BZ Fool]

TS, appears to somehow blend multiple texture layers in to a single file prior to converting them for export along with the model itself. I'm using Paint.net as my externally linked paint program out of TS. It has some useful tools for enhancing graphic files although they (paint program in general) all seem focused on this more then actual tools for creating model skins from a simple UV map image. It is somewhat useful for decal placement and filling in the lined image though. I guess what I need to focus on now is how to make them all work together, so I can reliably and consistently create some decent skins for my models. I might also note that BZII seems to render both textures and material colors quite efficiently when combined together. Does BZII choke when doing this sort of thing? Material colors are not textures, so would this create problems for the rendering engine that BZII uses? PS: The output background color from TS is by default grey...can I set this via the transparency controls to become invisible to the game engine? 

[mrtwosheds]

Does BZII choke when doing this sort of thing? Material colors are not textures, so would this create problems for the rendering engine that BZII uses

No. Presumably you mean the diffuse, ambient and spectral colors.
I think it is best to leave the main body parts white/grey though or it will affect the appearance of team colors in game and possibly look odd.

The xsi format also has an entry for vertex colours,                SI_MeshVertexColors {
Allot of the stock models use it, like the little lights on the apc are colored blue with vertex color.
You can also blend colour between vertex's using this and make rainbow coloured frames if you wanted to.
Don't know if ts supports that or not, the stuff I use does not, so I add it in notepad if I want vertex colors.

The output background color from TS is by default grey...can I set this via the transparency controls to become invisible to the game engine?

Why would you do that? the __h is the best way to make frames invisible in bz2. Or use alpha channels on textures for things like plants.