I was wondering if anyone had any advice for my situation.
I have modeled a large tree with various roots/limbs coming off of it and some extra limbs to place around. Now the limbs and roots that I have intersecting are easy to uv and texture. Here is where my dilemma comes into play. I want to add grime or distinct areas of decay, stuff at the base of the tree, etc into the texture but right now I have the texture tiling. If I add detail it obviously tiles horribly. So my question is would multiple uv sets be the best option here? If so does anyone have a tut on multiple uv sets for Max2009?
Thanks.

Vertex color is one inexpensive way to add grime/variation, you basically just darken the diffuse texture by making certain vertices a darker color (white color = no change).

Vertex blending is similar, except instead of a colors you're blending in another texture, like a tiled grime map.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/VertexB...gTutorial.html

A second UV set can more than double the vertex count of the model, when exported to a game. So vertex color or blending can be a big savings.

correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the doubled vertex count mostly just affects transfer rates and that shouldn't be a big issue I think. not like there are any light calculations done on them. well.. I guess if you work on some limited platform every kB you save is worth something.

vertex color is good cause you save a texture if you just want color variations
vertex blending I guess that you save a masking texture?

but ya.. I'm just guessing here.

I am using vertex color already. I just want a different texture or pattern/design on different areas of the tree or whatever object I am using. So, things like that, the best process for that. Or is what I am already doing with vertex paint the best?

Vertex blending sounds like what you want.

go to shaderFX homepage. theres a video there about vertex blending using 2 diferent tiling textures. thats what you want. it uses shader fx and max vertex paint

Hey bitmap I saw that program before and it looks promising. I downloaded and installed it but I dont know how to get it to run.. Any suggestions? I emailed Lumonix also but dont know when they will reply..

Maybe this will help? http://www.cgshelf.com/vertex_paint.php

Thanks Mike, I saw that tutorial before. I was able to get shader fx to run. Now my issue is getting the texture blending to render in the viewport as I was before with my previous setup...