ok heres what you do
collapse to the top-most modifier on the ship mesh
open the rtt window
pick a renderer (i tend to use something with raytrace and hi in it)
make sure the ship is selected
make sure projection mapping is off
select automatic unwrap (use the chanel it gives you)
in output, add a diffuse map
in selected element common settings, check enable choose a name and make sure its in the diffuse slot
disable automatic map size, instead use 1024
in baked material settings, output into source
select keep baked materials
hit render
ship may look whack, dont be alarmed
youl find a new modifier applied to your ship, click on it and hit edit, confirm your uv map to make sure its not a jumbled mess
under the edit button theres a save button, click it and save the uvw file
collapse to the new modifier
add an unwrap uvw modifier
set map channel to 1
hit load, find that uvw file you saved
collapse to the new modifier
open the material editor
select the first material, should be the baked map
apply it to the whole model and turn it on in the vewport
and youre done, conver the mesh to poly, ad goodies and save as pof
btw this just generates the map, im not sure how to optimise the process so it doesnt end up wasting so much uv space. id like to know, so if anyone knows this stuff better than i do please speak up
