Synide said:

'Primary' material files get embedded/baked into the model during binarization.

'Secondary' material files, such as damage materials or materials that one may 'swap' to from original 'primary' ones do not get embedded. And, as such must be included in the .pbo.

Once, the 'primary' material is inside the model I believe that one doesn't need to have the corresponding textual or binarized version of the same sitting inside the .pbo. Because, they are small and inconsequential in the scheme of things it's easier to include them all rather than excluding the unnecessary ones.

The entirety of the 'primary' material.rvmat gets embedded. Not, of course any of the raw image data that a given material.rvmat may point too in turn.

If you are trying to use 'new' shaders (and consequently any subordinate texture images) in your source textual material file and then expect the A1 binarize.exe to try and embed these into a A1 style binarized model, you won't succeed.

If, binarize.exe fails to pre-process a material then subsequently it will fail to embed said material into the output model.

Possibly, If the engine fails to find the appropriate proper embedded material information in the model (due to the above problem) it may then try looking in the .pbo for the textual/binarized version but I don't think it does. Been along time since I tested that.

If, you want to use these 'new' shaders etc. then for the moment probably don't binarize your model.

Seems a mute point though because if you wait a few shakes-of-a-lambs-tail the 'new' A2 binarize and associated tools should be along. And then you can knock yourselves out.