Hello everybody,

i'm having problem with Milkshape: it doesn't import textures anymore. It's about any kind of object, exported as file .obg or .5gd is the same.
Having re-installed SimPE when I still didn't notice the bug, i have to understand where is the problem.
Now i've uninstalled Milkshape (version 1.8.5 beta) and installed the previous (1.8.4), but the bug is still there.
Can someone please check the uploaded files in Milkshape? Do you see textures/materials? If you don't SimPE is the problem, if not it means that Milkshape is a serious problem...

Thanks in advance!!!

I've never had a texture attached to the 5gd or obj when exporting from simpe. The only time I've seen that is when exporting from Blender or Wings.

I've seen OBJs and other files have materials attached to them if you export them with a material from Milkshape, or if they came with such a file from another program (it's a .mtl file if it's attached to an OBJ).

Exported SimPE files never come with materials. You will usually get two files when exporting from SimPE, but those are just a two-part file (both with a "5gd" extension, one is listed as 5GD and the other as an XML file, both are as far as I know needed).

Your meshes, both the SimPE export and the OBJ shows up fine for me, so my guess is that something's wrong with your Milkshape version. Can you post a picture of how it shows up for you?

Yes, sure. this is what I see:





Is it correct?

The 3D window and left upper corner looks fine (like they do for me, can't see anything wrong there). Looks like it's just some settings that are a bit off from the norm.

Right-click the left lower window and change from "flat shaded" to "wireframe" (the top one).
Change the top right corner from "Smooth shaded" to "Wireframe" (the top one).

Should be back to normal (3 wireframe windows and one 3D window).

(Mine looked exactly like yours with "flat shaded" and "Smooth shaded" in those windows, so since it's replicable I'm positive that's the issue here)

The "Material" preview is always black when there's no material there. When there is one, it lists each material with a name, and the materials show up like spheres inside the preview window. If you click the "new" button in the Material tab you can see how it should appear when there is a material there.

Yes, you're right, when i work on a project usually i use the same windows configuration, i changed when i was so nervous that I freaked out because I couldn't understand... just a moment of idiocy.


That's the problem: at the first import of files, on the first days, i saw the textures files in the Material Tab, and in the Group Tab, besides the name of the elements i didn't see No Material between the brackets, i saw the name of the texture file assigned to them, and it happened for all objects except the 4t2 clothes, 'cause their meshes usually have no texture assigned, only recolors files. Sorry that i don't have screenshots to show, I didn't know I should have done them. Then something changed.
My old father who shares this pc with me said that some day ago Windows have done one of his updates, regarding Network Framework, this is the only new. Don't know what to think...

If you assign a material and texture to an object (doesn't matter if it's the "right" texture or material for that object, can be any), can you take a picture of how it now looks?

When you import a mesh that doesn't have a material, it's supposed to say "no material" beside them in the Groups tab. Does it say anything different?

When you export an item from SimPE, it doesn't come with a material/texture, and is going to say "no material", until you add a material and texture to the object.

When you export an item from Blender into Milkshape (not via SimPE), it may or may not come with a material/texture. It depends on the export settings you're using (Not sure about the GMDC/5GD files, but OBJ files can have material files - it's the extra ".mtl" file with the same name as the ".obj" file)

No, nothing different, this is what i see:





If what you describe is normal, and I always trust you, then everything works fine.



I don't have Blender installed, I made a choice between them and i choose Milkshape for working with SimPE files, probably i have extracted obj files with .mtl at the start and when i imported obj without a texture i thought it was a bug of the software. This is the only logic explanation.

Thanks simmer22, I really no longer know how to thank you.

That looks completely normal to me. Unless you expected something different to happen?

.SimPE never exports or imports "mtl" files (it uses different filetypes/resources for materials).

If you export OBJ files that have materials from Milkshape, and later import those files back in again to Milkshape, the materials will also import along with the mesh. I suspect something like that is what happened the previous times.

Sometimes if the material can't find the texture (if you've moved the picture or edited the names - Milkshape is very sensitive to those things), the file will still refer to the old name of the texture, but not show the texture on the object. You can then just load back in the texture, and it should show up fine again.

One thing to be a bit wary of - Milkshape has a tendency to crash if materials have the same names. It's probably just a weird bug (doesn't happen to groups with the same name), but if you for instance have two materials called "Material01" and try to export/save the file, the program is likely to crash. Just something that's useful to know (I've had that issue several times, and it always happens when least expected, which is why I tend to remove the "mtl" files if I don't need them)

Thanks for your suggestions: really valuable!