how do i add a material to a block? i see that theres an area to do it but for things like normal maps isnt an actual normal map(skin2) required for it to work properly.

It's quite normal that you need a normal map which you extract from your original texture map . In your shader you need a second sampler like you mentioned which should have the same name as the normal map you extracted.
For adding a material to a block or sort like, you can use this simple code:
Code:

---

string NorMapShader = <your_effect.fx>;

material NM
{
flags = tangent; // important when dealing with normalmapping
effect = NorMapShader; // The effect file containing the vertex shader, pixel shader and technique.
}
action shader
{
...
my.material = NM;
...
}

---

It's as easy as that ^^

Cheers

Frazzle

thanks