@ihaveamac oh alright! sorry for my stupidity aha, i'm just now getting into the scene of all of this. i have to wonder though, is all of this necessary for simply recoloring a model? it's an awful lot of work.
@ihaveamac turns out i was doing that, thank you for correcting me ^_^ however, it lead me straight back into a circle. braindump is still just sitting there as a... .3dsx file, still questioning how i want to open it when i click on it. i'll try it again