First off prejudged fire ... I have never tried GIMP, but will assume GIMP works like Photoshop or PaintShopPro.
Step I. Create a texture map for you sword. I usually do this in pieces/areas of an object .. so start with the blade. Select all the blade surfaces open the texture mapper and then map to the *front*. (This assumes the sword is vertical and the broad part of the blade is facing you.) Scale and arrange the position to left side of the rectangle you see in Texture Editor leaving space for other parts. Now select a different part eg: the handle map it the same way but make its final position different from the blade (no overlap). Repeat for the hilt.
Step2. Select the whole sword. Open Texture Editor, Maximise the area of the Editor, then maximize the rectangle area (that will be your final image.). Now either make a screen capture or use the copy to clipboard function (in AC3D V6). *SAVE* your textured mapped sword as an AC3D .ac file
Step3. Use the screen capture or paste from clipboard into GIMP. Crop the image to the rectangle which defines your image size. Use this as a *layer* in GIMP ( the 'sword_map layer').
Step 4. Create another layer and move the sword_map layer on top of it and make it semi-transparent.
Step 5. Using the underneath layer, use the *image select* select a rectangle where you see the blade part, then *fill* that selection with a *gradient* fill (a grey to white will work nicely ... gives a silvery effect).
Step 6. Using the image select tool, select other parts and paint or fill as you want.
Step 7. Save the final image in two ways. 1. In a format that maintains the layers (in case you want to go back and change things). 2. Delete the *sword_map layer* and save it as a jpg.
Step8. Open AC3D, load the texture mapped sword file you saved in Step1, Select the whole sword object and go Object-->Texture->Load Texture and find the .jpg file you saved. You should have a nice textured sword.
griff
