profile: 3dsMax 2013
task: modeling / obejct assimilation

I want to model a Sword and import it into Skyrim. (The Elder Scrolls; Game)
To retain a certain structure to my model
(so I can assign different textures to the several parts later on) I want to join the parts together (lets say the blade and the haft) on the geometry level (meaning verts and edges).

Still I don’t want the differnet parts to go into one (be actually one object) for the reason I described above.

Could you explain me how to handle this issue?
Besides if its possible to connect several parts into one and still being able to texture each section individually please tell me!

Furthermore:

I heard about arranging objects to a certain sub-object level. Can someone please tell me how that’s done? (i.e. which commands to use?)

regards

There are two ways I can think of to do this. One way is to group all the objects. It doesn’t meet your criteria of joining at the vertex level, but it would allow you to keep part separate to easy material application.

The second way (and the one I would recommend) is to join all the pieces and use a multi-sub object material.

Dean

Max Design 2014 / Win 7 Pro
Xeon E5-2687W @ 3.10 GHz (x2); 64 GB Ram; Nvidea 4000 and GTX 570