I am getting my new computer tmrw, finally, and I will have the next two months free to work on my skyrim mods. The first thing I need to do is to create some custom meshes again for my buildings.

I had originally modeled a huge bathhouse but when it came time to uv unwrap and texture it, I found that i could not get the textures to look right with so many pieces and that other pieces were too small.

My first question is,

Using nifskope, I believe its only possible to use one normal, one diffuse and one specular map (if I remember correctly) all in a .dds format.

So if i were to bring in one large building I can basically have only 1 texture file correct? or is there a way to use more than 1?

Also, if I can only use 1 set of textures, is there a program I can use to combine multiple maps into 1 .dds? Or is there a better program than photoshop to actually texture a building seperately and then save it has 1 set?

I'm using 3ds max, and photoshop cs5; or any tutorials you know of would be great b/c I got so stumped on this part last go around.

You're correct, sort of. You can only use one diffuse, spec and normal per NiTriShape of the mesh. So what you should be doing is separating your building into different parts - walls as one, beams as another, ceiling as another, etc. Apply a different material to each and they'll come out as a group of NiTriShapes that you can texture individually.

Take a look at a Skyrim architecture piece to see what I mean.