I know the .mtl file is not necessary. Also, for myself, I usually delete them immediately, as I am so used to doing texture assigning in the program I intend to render in.

However, to be more universal and NOT having or needing to conform to any particular programs method for handling textures but still wanting the textures to load w/ the object, I WANT to include the .mtl file...

Even though as mentioned I just get rid of them, you can't deny that it is useful that at the very least, the diffuse map will load w/ the object regardless of which app your using.

Even better, should we just start using Collada files that will save and load the textures w/i 1 file?!?

Of course I could simply supply the .obj w/ no references and the actual texture files, but I'm -trying- to be nice =P

There are 3 kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't..