I'm trying to replace the womrat cage with something different, but I'm having a few problems.

The glass seems to be picking up my texture instead of being clear. The glass in the Milkshape texture editor isn't aligned with any texture, either in the original or with mine, but somehow it's picking up texture from mine.

The food dish cannot be modified in any way or the food vanishes.

An extra item I put in the terrarium refuses to show the texture properly. It shows only patches.

Can anyone help, please?

Glass issue is most likely an issue with the UVmapping and/or the TXMT, or you haven't separated out the glass parts of the mesh.

Make sure to name the mesh groups according to the naming system in the original file (that's the easiest way, or there's a lot of etra renaming that needs to be done).

You need to keep animated parts roughly in the same areas they were on the original item, and if you want to keep animations, these need to be tied to the joints (like for clothes, but has to be done manually). If you're converting from TS3/TS4, some animated objects may need some remodeling for this to work.

Make sure extra items/subsets are UVmapped/textured and named properly - if textures aren't showing, or showing up wrong, something is usually wrong with one of these.

If that doesn't help, pictures and possibly the file would make it easier to figure out what's wrong (otherwise it's mostly guesswork).

Glass I hadn't UV mapped it properly. There was a spot on the texture that I hadn't noticed.

Had to leave the food dish where it was, but I recoloured it.

Thanks!

The part I added is the spider web. In Milkshape, as you can see, it's a proper web, but in game it looks like scraps. I also included a picture of the UV map and the comments on the mesh.

For transparent textures, make sure you use DXT5 when replacing the texture. DXT3 doesn't handle transparency very well (and will cause issues like this).

Depending on which Blend method you're using in the TXMT (none/1 vs Blend/0) for the alpha parts, the result can vary, especially for transparent parts. If there's gradients like for the spider web, I'd probably go for Blend, but then I'd also separate out the parts that needed it, because Blend doesn't always play well with full opacity and 3D items (flat items work fine, so anything that needed the alpha cutouts, but not the rest).

Hmm, tried both and still have a patchy web. Even copied the settings from the original and it still isn't playing nicely. So weird. It shows up perfectly in Milkshape.

Can you upload the file?

Currently set to what the original was.

1: You may want to make the web double-sided so it can be seen from both sides.

2: In Milkshape I tend to keep the "alpha reference" set to around 0.5, because if it's set closer to 0 it often doesn't quite reflect how items are going to show up when using the none/1 setting in the TXMT - anything you want to use that setting on needs to be black/white alpha, not transparent (works fine for the leaves, but not "greytone" alphas). Also, most of the time when lower opacity items like the web don't show up, it's because the texture itself is too low opacity to work well with this setting. It sometimes works better with Blend/0, though (but not always - could still be a touch too low opacity).

If you're planning to keep the web as a permanent part of the terrarium, the easiest way around this is to make the web a separate non-recolorable subset with the blend/0 setting.

You set the group as a new subset, clone the "spiderenclosure_surface_medred_txmt", fix the filename and Description (but keep the "stdMatBaseTextureName"), do "Fix TGI" to make the TXMT separate (with that step you don't need to do "Fix Integrity"), and change to blend/0 in the parameters. You also need to fix subset names in the GMDC, add the new SHPE, and make sure they match the TXMT.
This makes the extra subset borrow the texture from itself without needing to add a new one, but allows for different settings in the TXMT.
(poke me if you need a better step-by-step, but it's really just a slightly modified how to add non-rec subsets)

Ok, trying this now. Two questions.

How do I make the web double sided?
Is the 'alpha reference' in Milkshape the opacity?

Select, then "Duplicate" the web group, unselect (so you're sure nothing else is selected), Select the duplicate group, do "Face-> Reverse vertex order", then "Vertex -> Align normals" (Align normals on everything may or may not work depending on the mesh group, may have to be done in steps. For this group it's fine). If you don't fix the normals, the group will show up like a black part of the mesh, or with wrong shadows for the normals.

"Alpha reference" is found by right-clicking in a window (3D window), "Transparency --> Set alpha reference..."
I'm guessing it's the opacity in Milkshape. The 0.5 setting seems to correlate more or less with what you'll see ingame when Blend isn't used. I've found it can help determine if you need other settings for the TXMT. I use 0.5 as a default, and set it higher if I want to check out transparent textures.

It's working now, thanks!

Added a second web and it refuses to pick up the right texture. It's taking the terrarium texture instead of the web texture. I have checked the TXMT and the TXTR and everything looks right.

Check if the subset name is correct (and if you're importing as GMDC/Unimesh, make sure you've fixed the subset name in the comments - you can fix it in the GMDC resource, but it helps if the comments are correct).
Also make sure the group is facing the proper way, if you cloned it.
And check the UVmap just to make sure nothing happened there.

Wow, that was a weird one. Tried all of those and nothing was wrong.

It turns out that it matters, when you clone a shape resource to add a new part of the mesh, that you have the correct texture linked. I must have never had a new shape with a different texture before as I hadn't even noticed that there was a texture reference there.

Thanks!

Did you clone the shape resource, or did you just add a new line? You should just add a new line to the existing one (there are some exceptions, but most of the time one SHPE can handle all the TXMTs, unless there are multiple sets of GMDC/SHPE/CRES/GMNDs in the same file)

But yes, you do need to make sure the SHPE references the proper TXMTs.

The SHPE references all the TXMTs (both recolorable and non-recolorable) and makes the textures show up, while the GMND along with the MMAT handles most of the additional referencing for recolorable subsets.

I've always just cloned the shape. But, come to think of it, the only shapes I've worked with previously have been clothing and they're different.

For clothes you normally work with one SHPE resource (at least the files I've seen, unless they've been merged with other meshes), while for hairs and accessories it's usually one per GMDC in the mesh file (because of multiple ages/genders).

Those four resources do more or less the same things in object and CAS items, but the texture/mesh referencing is handled a bit different in CAS recolors, via the 3DIR (it points to the resources from both the mesh and recolor files. The two first lines in the 3DIR reference the SHPE and CRES, and I think the SHPE and GMND have some connections with subset names and such. Issues with the SHPE/GMND seem to be more forgiving in clothing files, but can cause some trouble with accessory files if subset names have been changed and these aren't set up properly in the SHPE/GMND, causing blue-flashing).

Multiple SHPE resources in objects - I've seen them for items with multi-states and separate mesh states, like counters and similar. Maybe doors and windows.