The problem is that I've been leaving these frame plates in my running betas, and that makes them look like a block of black sliding down the track. My brainwave today is that I should always cut the proper outline shape of the plates with alpha before getting the thing running, and then throw at least a basic layer style on it. This is simple to do, and doesn't have any problematic effects on UV mapping.
The frame plates always have to be done as vector shapes (working in raster is useless for this job) and vectors scale perfectly to any size, up or down. This means I can just throw down a basic rectangle to any scale on the texture, then draw a series of vectors inside it to get the required alpha mask (without worrying about details like rivets, etc), and then sort the rest of the UV's without worrying about whether the frame plates will fit or not. If I need to change their size they'll scale without problems anyway, so I can just fit them in wherever I like. No stress.
If I make a habit of doing it this way, the running betas will look a heck of a lot better for very little extra work. It's work that has to be done sooner or later, and it's easy, so all running betas should have it. The ones I made for the Penn462 revamp the other day took hardly any time, and make a huge difference to the looks when compared to the weird box that the PopTop original had down the middle.
