Multiple Skins on the Same Model

Originally Posted by AFZ

If you want to have a variety of -still- units (like buildings or doodads) that will not be created by the player, and you want to save some space in your map, specially when the model is big, you can use only one model to use all the skins.

·First, make a totally transparent texture and save it as .tga (you can use a small texture, the scaling doesn't matter because it will be totally transparent).

We will use this texture later.

·Now, you're going to do some mdl edition: convert your model to mdl and give team color to everything, this can be done by setting its main material (the material that is used for almost all the model) to have a transparent layer and another layer underneath it that will be teamcolor.

·Assign the transparent texture to be used by the upper layer. You should convert the texture to .blp first.

If you did it OK, then the whole model should look painted by the teamcolor if you use it as an unit.

·Now, make a new doodad and set it's replaceable Id number to the replaceable Id number in the model.

·You can assign any custom texture as a Replaceable Texture for this doodad, since the upper layer is transparent, it will show up the layer underneath it, that is replaceable Id, then, the model will display any custom texture that you give to it.

And voila! you don't have to import a lot of different models, each with a different texture.

Hope it helps.



DISADVANTAGES:
·This technique can only be used on doodads (I think only destructibles)
·Can get a little hard if the model has transparent areas. (but not too much!)