I have never used houdini, so would appreciate any other suggestions (Would rather not learn/use a new software just for this little function.) If there are none, of-course ill try houdini, thanks.
All of these functions were possible to achieve with default blender installation and are equally easy to use. Especially with the F2 addon. I guess you are just learning how it's done in code? If then, good job and keep it up!
tingham: no its a simple alpha plane - i dont remember exactly, but i think i wrote a little function which mapped mousecoordinates to the plane gridspace - which updated the alpha plane position accordingly.
You should be able to select several objects and apply an unwrap modifier. I don't really this why it could't work. Very old max version ? thousands of objects ? Then use the pack function inside the unwrap.
Don't know about transparency, I know there is cthruview, http://cthruview.sourceforge.net/ , which can do that, but don't know if it does multiple images. I usually just use XnView, and never needed a function like that.
Assassins creed 2 had something out of the extreme, it was definitely not the rule. Old games are going to be less functional over time regardless if you have a legal or not legal copy, due to obvious compatibility reasons.
giveing it the same name will overwrite it? for models i dont use the re-import function at all since i find it too buggy and always just manaully import with the same name and let it over write.
i believe you want to read something about light functions: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/LightFunctions/index.html this is the way to go. you can even animate this for caustics or so.
The earlier viewer doesn't use POM. It's just normal mapping and a converted height map that you're seeing in that view. Getting the same look requires a high-res sphere for the height mapping to function in SUITE 2.
There's a plugin called QuadQuick that offers this functionality, but I haven't used it personally so i can't offer any opinions about how well it works, or version compatibility. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=4344