Thanks for the suggestion, but the smoothing groups don't work that way (or at all)...
It's already parented to a tracktrain, so to test what you said I moved it then unparented it and deleted the tracktrain. Nothing went wrong. I even tried it with a func_detail and everything looks fine. It all relies on the vmt and the shader. Everything shader-wise is done at runtime, so as long as the vmt specifies it properly, anything can receive dynamic lighting. It's just only practical on something that moves. Any troubles I had earlier were the result of the vmt, (ex. I removed some keys associated with cubemaps because they make every vertex material in the map buggy). It took me several rewrites and copy/pastes from working materials to make a vmt that worked. It should now work with anything. 
There's a reason I made it like it is. The cube itself was in development before I realized I could light it this way. It's big because it holds something. There's already a lot more to this cube than the screenshot shows you, and I'm lucky it turned out even this well. 
EDIT: Fun fact of the day: While testing this, I learned that Portal Turrets will shoot at func_physboxes if they are moving. I have no clue why.
Thanks for the suggestion, but the smoothing groups don't work that way (or at all)...
It's already parented to a tracktrain, so to test what you said I moved it then unparented it and deleted the tracktrain. Nothing went wrong. I even tried it with a func_detail and everything looks fine. It all relies on the vmt and the shader. Everything shader-wise is done at runtime, so as long as the vmt specifies it properly, anything can receive dynamic lighting. It's just only practical on something that moves. Any troubles I had earlier were the result of the vmt, (ex. I removed some keys associated with cubemaps because they make every vertex material in the map buggy). It took me several rewrites and copy/pastes from working materials to make a vmt that worked. It should now work with anything.
There's a reason I made it like it is. The cube itself was in development before I realized I could light it this way. It's big because it holds something. There's already a lot more to this cube than the screenshot shows you, and I'm lucky it turned out even this well.
EDIT: Fun fact of the day: While testing this, I learned that Portal Turrets will shoot at func_physboxes if they are moving. I have no clue why.
I will do anything if it involves eating cake... Unless it's illegal... There's no cake in jail.
