myltiple texture problem

hello,

i have a model thats in about 20 parts, each has teh same nice noded base material, an on top i added detailed uv mapps

heres the problem, i can no longer easily change the materials properties because of the uv maps

i was wondering if anyone knew of a way to add the uv map to the base material using nodes perhaps?

so that per part, the only thing that is different is the uv map and the base materials i want all to be linked

i was playing around, but it completly changed the base material, i tired to make a material with my texture map and everything else transparent, and overlay it to the base materail via nodes, but that didnt look good at all,

does anyone have any ideas?

alright, i think i have found a solution and a bigger problem

ive jsut started to play with material nodes, so that probably it, but

does anyone know how to make one node material, then use that node material as one of the materials in a second node material???

whenever i try this i only get the base material of node material 1, not what i wanted:S

since i a bad at explaining i mean this:

2nd node material

  • some nodes
  • a material to use
    -1st node material
    –some nodes for 1st material
    –3 materials that make up node material 1

that way if i cant to change node materail 1, i would only do that in one place, istead of having to change it 30x in my other materials