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hat would be cooler is say I were doing a figure like a centaur that needs to be constructed from two figures and obviously the lower half of the human and the upper neck and head of the horse need to be made invisibe, it would be great if I could also not have to texture the whole of both characters.
What is that called when you can selectively texture body parts of a character? Wouldn't that also reduce the size of the file to be rendered? That is one of the things I wish the figures were created from the box to be capable of doing.

oh, and all figures are made so you can selectively texture. they all have more than one material zone.  some have more than others.

but no, it wouldn't necessarily change the load on your resources.  for instance, on every Vicky, the lips and face have been in the same map.  you could apply a texture just to the her face and not her lips.  but your texture file would include the lips anyway, so you're just not making good use of what you have.

if an area had a separate material zone and a separate UV map (like the Vicky's head and torso), then you could apply a texture to one area and not another and save resources.