Ok, it never ceases to amaze me how simple you think doing something can be , only to be puzzled for days trying to fix it.
Using Darkplaces, and found some old alternate armor skins for the std armor.mdl
I wanted to merely add these skins to be skin 3,4 and 5 respectively, and keep the old armor skins in the original. Well, seems I can sub the skins for skin 0,1 and 2 if I rename the files: armor.mdl_0.png , _1 and _2 respectively , essentially placing these skin files in the progs folder where the armor model is located, but trying to make them skins _3 _4 and _5 results in a white skin all the time. Im using (2) pak files for my mod and they both have progs folders , but as I understand, the system will merely override same file names in higher directory structures, and I dont see any duplicates in lower directories such as id1.
The DP extensions file describes "skin groups" such as _A_B which I dont completely understand, but for the most part my naming scheme (armor.mdl_x.png) where "x" is the new skin number seems to work when subbing to the original skin in the mdl file, and I also am doing the same thing where a player model with (8) skins in it, I merely place the new skin files in the same directory as the model, even in a pk3 file, and it works, so am really stumped by this one. Any help appreciated.