Basically, I'm trying to make an object that is not recolorable and has two different materials (one will be metal, the other gemstone). I cannot find any existing objects that fit this criteria to export and work from.

All my attempts to piece files together have either met with the metal part ending up with the gem material (and then that copy of the file got overwritten by accident, yay) but with incorrect coloration, or only the gem shows while the metal part is just barely visible thanks to bits of a mostly transparent texture (I have yet to figure out what it is) and there is no drop shadow. Picture attached of that one for reference with the actual mesh beside it as seen in Milkshape.

I know how to point it to different blocks and how to get each MATD block to point to a specific texture, I'm just at my wit's end trying to splice everything together.

So, uh, yeah. What's the correct way of going about this? Also, do I need to generate new IDs for the metal/gem material names? I've found that it's the same for all the drop shadow MATDs I've looked at despite having different settings, but it varies between each phong/gemstone MATD. If so, what is it? FNV32?

On your picture, it looks like the order of groups is wrong (even though the names are probably correct) – so the metal part ends up thinking it's the dropshadow (that transparent bit does look like the dropshadow texture to me). This has happened to me a few times when regrouping stuff in Milkshape, it tends to move the regrouped group to the bottom.

Are you trying to make your gemstones use a different shader or add groups to the whole thing, or is this only about the material? What did you clone your object from, and what groups/materials does the original have?

I thought it was the dropshadow as well, but I swapped the image out in the mcfg for something else and it didn't change. Also swapped out the burnt texture and it STILL didn't change, so I'm at a loss.

The groups WERE in the wrong order, I didn't initially realize that the dropshadow plane should have been group00 to match the original mesh. I corrected that and rearranged the entries accordingly, but all I got was severely exploded polygons. Decided to just go to bed at that point, haha. I might need to start over at this point, but this is a thought that will most likely send me into a seething rage. :(

As far as I can tell, I can only apply a single material to a group, so I have to split my mesh accordingly. The object itself is cloned from the makeup tray clutter (clutterTableTrayWMakeup), which is just a single group and material for the object. The mesh is pulled from a clone of tableCoffeeDanishModern, which has two groups and materials (the table and the glass top).

I forgot to include this in my original post: I am terribly, terribly confused about the MTST. In the clutter object, this is set to the object (which is in a different order from the table). In the table, it's the frame. I'm looking at the wiki page for it again, but I'm entirely lost on how to modify this properly, or if I even need to modify it at all.

It is true that you can only have a single material for a given group.

Are you selecting that table because you want the properties of a table or because it has two material groups?

Your first post indicated that you wanted a two material group object that is not recolorable. The EA flower vases are like that so if you weren't looking for a table surface object you could always use one of those.

I may be misunderstanding you but it sounds like you're asking whether you should be ordering the groups according to the mesh you've borrowed from the makeup tray or whether you should order them according to the table that you've cloned.

You should order them according to the clone. The table you've cloned has two material groups one of which is on a glass slider. The part of your object that you want to look like gemstone should be given the same group number (and order) as that group...the one which is glass. The part of your object that you want to take a metal texture should be given the same group number (and order) as the table frame. This part, the part you replace the frame with, will be recolorable in the game though unless you specifically do something to change that (and I don't know how to do that or I'd just tell you).

If you order your groups in this way, and you like the way the glass slider looks applied to the gem portion of your object, you shouldn't need to fiddle with the mtlsrc's at all (ie. the things you change when you want to alter the material slider). You also shouldn't need to generate new IDs for the metal/gem material names in your new object.

The MTST is set to the clutter in your mesh object because that is the part that's on a Phong slider most likely. It's set to the table frame in your clone object because the frame is on a phong slider while the glass part isn't. You can still look at the glass slider though by opening up the mtlsrc for the block assigned to the glass part in Notepad.

Hope that helps.

I took the MLOD/MODL from the table purely because it has two material groups. The object itself is a decorative item. I figured I should have the groups ordered the same as the table, since that's where the entire MLOD is pulled from, I just had them ordered wrong.

Thank you for the info! I'll mess with it a bit more today and see if I can get it straightened out. I'll probably just start with a fresh set of files instead of trying to unravel what I've messed up so far.

Just in case this happens again: there seems to be an issue with some objects using the default dropshadow no matter what you do. cmomoney posted about it a little while ago ("%$&# Shadows! or something to that effect – he was trying to apply a custom dropshadow), but no solution was found. Maybe you were seeing the same phenomenon here.

You know, I completely forgot about that thread till you mentioned it. That might be the problem.

After starting over with a fresh set of files and knowing a bit more than when I originally started, I've got this thing bending to my will. >D Thanks a bunch, you two!