OK, so I managed to get the CMP Importer to work with Milkshape 1.7.6. I managed to successfully import the ship model for the Kusari Drake. I managed to export the Drake model to 3DS. I successfully imported the 3DS into 3ds Max 7 and modified it quite a bit. I successfully saved it as a MAX file as well as successfully exported it back out as a 3DS file again. I successfully imported the altered 3DS file into Milkshape after figuring out how to correct some position and orientation anomalies. I created some textures and applied them to the model in Milkshape. I successfully saved it as an MS3D file. But when I try to Export it to CMP, it crashes the program. Now, I'm fairly sure that it isn't the program or the plugin that is the problem because I tested it out by creating a simple sphere, adding a texture to the sphere, and exporting to CMP and that worked just fine... So it has to be something wrong with my model, or with my group names, or with my materials, or with my material names, or possibly with the fact that I had textured the model in Max before Exporting to 3DS and when I deleted the Max textures (in Milkshape) and made new ones, some of the old Max data wasn't removed and is causing problems or something.

So what I need from someone, is a list of things I should check and make sure I have correct. I have 7 groups and 7 textures (one texture per group). If I view the textured model in Milkshape it looks correct. The group names are each 10 characters or less and each group has a unique name. The first group in the list is the main hull of the ship (named, for the time being, "RaptorHull". The names of the materials are related but not identical to the names of the groups they are assigned to. The names of the TGA files used as diffuse maps for the materials are related but not identical to the names of the materials themselves as well as the groups to which they are assigned.

I have enabled "Shininess" on all of the materials (a combination of specular level and gloss level I assume, but in Max those are handled as separate aspects of a material)... would that cause an issue when exporting to CMP?

I know that I am supposed to have unique names for groups, especially the first group, and that I am supposed to have unique names for the materials, and that I am supposed to make sure that EVERYTHING has a material assigned to it. As near as I can tell, those are all correct... Is there something else I'm missing? Drizzt4.0's Ship Creating Tutorial v1.5 doesn't mention any of these requirements or any others for that matter, what I've learned so far I've learned from the forums here.

Please help!

Drake