6.4 - Shaders and the future.

I've been working with version 6.4 beta. Lots of great changes here. I have a few questions that I cant seem to find answers to:

I've tried attaching an FX file to a model in MED. Effects that otherwise work from script dont seem to as attached in MED. Is the ability to attach and FX file a future features, or even if attached, should I go ahead and use effect_load and create a material? I thought this feature would allow me to attach a shader to each texture? Any documentation?

I'd like to thank everyone for the great shaders they have contributed to the community. It seems that most of the normalmapping shaders require a new material to be created for each texture referenced. With the new ability (6.4) of supporting multiple textures per model, is it possible to create a normal mapping shader that does the following:

1) References the Colormap and alpha from each texture applied to the model
2) References the Normal map as an external file (named the same as the colormap with a _n for example) in the models directory
3) This FX shader would be attached in the Manage Skins dialogue under Skin Settings/Effect Setup to any texture you like in the Skin Editor so you could model a large geometry based level with multiple textures and apply the shader only to specific textures.

I hope I have been clear. I'm wondering if we will have the ability to apply shaders to individual textures in models that have multiple textures. It seems to me that this is where MED is going with the new Manage Skins dialogue.

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t seems that most of the normalmapping shaders require a new material to be created for each texture referenced.

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This is not the case (except maybe for level blocks, but you should not use shaders on level blocks, as they dont work well, or even corectly becasue of tangent errors). But for all models, terrains, etc, you can have one material and apply it to every model. The way it uses specific textures is through the preset names, like entSkin1,entSkin2, etc. The normal mapping shaders I have posted all do this.