By "unique texture/mesh names" do you mean the name of the cmp and mat file or the archetype longnames inside the files?

I mean the .cmp/.mat names,

Whats the archetype longname? And where can i find it?

It's a problem you get from lazy or just plain dumb modelers, they stick to simple names for the mesh groups and textures, things like "hull", "tail" & "wing" etc. Because they are simple you then get a lot of models with the same internal names, which then cause the mesh & texture switching you've seen.

Two way's to fix it, first try and make a clone with flmodelcloner, this will allow you to rename most of the offending parts & texture assignements and then use UTF-Edit to rename the nodes in the mat file to match. The second means importing the ship and textures into MS3D and rename everything to something longwinded and unique and then exporting it again. I use names like "BJM_Cravic_Main_Hull" which is my initials followed by the ships name plus the body part, If I don't have a name for the ship I use a 6 digit random number instead, the same applies to the textures.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

If you use utf to open up some cmp's, inside the vmesh data is entries like this:
data.ships.pirate.pi_elite.pi_elite.lod0-112.vms
If you have a model with the same named entries then it won't load in the new data, it will use the first ship that was spawned. Its the same with materials too.
If you are exporting from milkshape you really need to make your group names unique. You can use the materials if you plan for them to be refered to existing materials, otherwise they need to be unique too.
I think it is only the first group at the top of the list that affects spawning archetypes, but i always do all of them anyway.

I understand, thx for Everyones help, I'll see what i can do.

But yeh, i used alot of simple names like hull, and wing, and somtimes just the defult Box01. I had no idea FL looked at the individuall part names, i thought it just focused on the .cmp/.mat names.

looks like many hours of renameing ahead....

i think its better to generate a CRC from the ship arch name and tag that on the end of parts like Port_Wing_29493320 - the part name remains clearly legible and its guaranteed to be as collision proof as any other CRC

Edited by - Cold_Void on 8/10/2006 3:57:50 AM