hello! Was wondering if anyone has any ideas for sampling more than 4 internal textures of a model in a shader. The manual clearly states that only entskin1...entskin4 can be declared in the shader.

I can very easily just use mtlSkin1-4, which are "external" textures outside of the model, such as a sky cube, which is ok to declare and use. But I am trying to cram one more map into my shader, without having to write a new shader that points to a new external map.

Here is my skin list within the model:

Skin texture 1: Diffuse and Alpha...RGB and alpha are used
Skin texture 2: Rim lighting...RGB is used, Alpha isnt used by shader
Skin texture 3: ShinyMap...RGB is used, Alpha is used
Skin texture 4: Normal Map...RGB is used, Alpha isnt used by shader

Finally, I want to use a 5th texture, a sub surface map for some fake Subsurface scattering. This map is RGB, alpha isnt used. So as you can see, if I want to make multiple characters, each with their own subsurface map and subsurface color, I would need to make a different shader for each subsurface map.

I guess I could use vecSkill and perform some if statements and link the single shader to different SSS maps depending on the character, but maybe theres another clever way. Maybe I could use the unused Alpha channels of certain textures and use these as RGB values for the SSS map.

Curious if anyone else has any ideas.