Anim8or Community

Here's a very simple example.

I created a directory within Celestia's extras directory named "example" containing subdirectories
an8
models
textures\medres

I created an empty file in an8 named example.an8
then opened it in anim8or and created a cube
I then created a jpg surface texture image in that same directory named "surface_512.jpg" (and copied it to textures\medres)
loaded the copy of "surface_512.jpg" that's in the same directory with the .an8 model into a material and applied it to the cube.
(See the upper left Anim8or window in the screengrab below)

I did a "save" in Anim8or, then exported the cube as "example.3ds" and moved that file into the "models" subdirectory.

I created a simple example.ssc which orbits the example cube around the Sun. See the editor window at the upper right of the screengrab.

I then ran Celestia and did a "goto example" See the Celestia window at the lower left. It's using the "surface_512.jpg"  that's in the medres directory.

I've appended a zip containing the resulting directory structure, an8 and 3ds models, and their textures. You can extract that Zip into your Celestia extras directory and should get the same results that I got.

It works best for me to have two copies of the textures: one in the directory where I work on the Anim8or model, the other in Celestia's directory textures\medres for when I want to display the model in Celestia. I often do the model work in a completely separate directory tree, not in Celestia's. It's a little awkward, but produces the necessary results.

I suspect the model and its textures weren't imported into Anim8or correctly. Make sure you have all of the texture images in the same directory with the model when you first load it into Anim8or. That way Anim8or is guaranteed to find all of the necessary texture images.

When I loaded your model into Anim8or with no texture images available, it complained about only one texture image.  In other words, Anim8or is only looking for the one texture image, so that's the only texture that Celestia will try to load, too.

I made a  white jpg with arrows to show the texture image's orientation, and they point in the same directions on both the Anim8or model and the 3DS model exported from it as seen in Celestia. See below.

Yup. That's why doing backups frequently is essential, especially when you're working on an important project.

FWIW, Western Digital disks currently come with access to a limited-function version of Acronis. It takes about half an hour to backup 150 GB on my Windows computer, going from an internal SSD to an external 3TB disk.

None of them have any surface textures associated with them. Is that the way you want them to be?

OK, I understand. Thanks for investigating it.

The only way you're going to get comfortable with modeling is to do it. Don't be afraid to try things. You won't break anything. "Undo" is your friend. (Ctrl-Z).

The commands to copy-and-paste models and their components in Anim8or are the same as for text editors in Windows:
Ctrl-A = select all
Ctrl-C = copy to clipboard
Ctrl-V = paste to window
Then you can drag them wherever you want.

 The CMOD export script and the instructions for installing and using it are at the URL I posted previously:
http://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/modelling.html#4.1

Unfortunately, the combined model of the formation of three spacecraft is too large for me to upload.

The advantages of describing spacecraft in an SSC catalog instead of making a model containing several of them are
a) the resulting "Addon" is that much smaller, making it easier to share with others (e.g. I couldn't upload it to this forum)
b) when using the smaller model, Celestia is smaller and runs faster, and
c) when you use SSC catalogs, you can specify as many as you want in whatever formations you want, and make them do different things, e.g. fly in formation for a while, then separate on different missions

When I try to import a Lightwave .lwo model file, Anim8or fails. It generates an error popup complaining

Just so you'd know...
Missing LWOBJ

Where can I get a copy of "LWOBJ" and where should it be put?
I have a trial version of Lightwave v 2015.3 installed, but it does not include any file with that name.

Edited to add: this failure is seen in Anim8or v0.98 and v0.98a [build 1185]