Here's a thought I had stuck in my head. Is there a possibility to create a morpher modifier that changes the UVW coords rather than the mesh's?
The idea behind this is that I want to be able to move an eye's iris around on a flat surface (glasses, to be specific) rather than a spheric one. Using a mesh is always an option but it's not ideal. I'll be able to show pictures on what I mean tomorrow.
No need to use Morpher (and to my knowledge, Source doesn't support changes in mesh UVs, although in theory there is enough data in DMX to support this... but I don't think the engine uses it).
Instead, just use an animated material (scrolling material). That's probably the most viable method to do this. See Scrolling Textures (http://dev.wallworm.com/document/201/scrolling_textures.html).
Ah yeah, I see. Scrolling texture doesn't really look like the solution for me in this situation since I need it to move by command (in this case a morpher) rather than by default. I'm sure the tutorial willl prove helpful for another project I have planned though. :)
As for those pictures, here's the current set up, which is all meshes. It works fine for how I plan to approach it, but if you set two channels to 100%, the irises will leave the glasses' surface.
(https://www.wallworm.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FwlFkS4O.png&hash=e8e1a8a496d1dbd378ee396395393bb8d9129476)
(https://www.wallworm.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FspLXIha.png&hash=2aed309171e6ad4456671900db7c6f9214a6ecbf)
If there's no other way to solve this, then I can deal with it. :)
You should be able to control texture scroll values by command. So basically the scrolling was meant more to point in the direction, not scroll itself. You should be able to bind actions to offset the texture u/v offsets via VMT Proxies. I'm not sure of how you'd set it up, but I'm presuming you can do it.
If that doesn't actually work as I think you could do it, another option is this:
Make several Skins where each skin simply sets different $basetexturetransform , then swap the skin with the flex. You can create these skins via WW, but I've not yet made any docs on controlling basetexturetransforms yet... if I get time I'll do it later this week.
That all sounds awfully complicated. ;D I think it might be better to just stick with what I know, for now.
A friend of mine has also shown interest in the possibility to scroll a texture over a static mesh. But his expertise lies with Cryengine. We both work on a game there, but all I do is the modeling/texturing work.