Your cage may not actually be exporting correctly to xnormal, make sure your mesh is triangulated first(drop an edit mesh modifier in your stack before export).
Something like this? You can simulate somewhat with wax modifiers/preview in zbrush. If you are going to properly render it I am not sure how you would achieve it.
My favorite portfolio sites: 4ormat.com (great big image hosting, easy to modify, focuses on work) sketchfab.com (full 3d previews of your models. its amazing)
I'm trying not to make it high poly ( medium poly ?), the smooth modifier doubles if not triples the tri count. the result is great but unfortunately not the solution. I think it's mostly in the modelling.
maybe you can paint the texture straight, then apply it to a long poly strip and then use bend modifier or something similar and get it into a circle, and weld it onto your tire
You could cut and paste the skin modifier. As long as the vertex order doesn't change, it should work just fine. Meaning, exporting and reimporting technically shouldn't be an issue.
bigbadtoystore said they were going to 'glue' the orange tip on there, so I cancelled my order with them. I have yet to find a good place that will not modify him.
I think so... but its a modified version of the UE3 Editor If you want more info about the editor go to this page: http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEditorWiki/index.php/Main_Page
Cloth modifiers in max 8+ can do this i thought, you can even designate stitches and run the simulation to close the stitches together around the object etc.