Thanks Claude that's very kind of you!
I played with some simple stuff today. One sphere UV textured with one texture. No problems getting an ml file at all with obj export!
But when I load up a complicated scene with lots of textures it crashes - I realised that it's probably because an8 is not being able to acess all the textures - just as the person in that link above mentions.
Trouble I am having is that I have three computers with my textures spread around, and even though irt appears I have all the textures available on a mesh (because the materials in the materials list are all correctly coloured - not that rainbow orange and green colour), I have been missing out on my bumpmaps and spec maps etc - which perhaps dont show up as missing in the materials list.
??
I think this is the problem - all my fault because I have not been a good housekeepr over the last few years as far as texture direcoried go
So I will work though that and If I still have problems will take you up on your kind offer.
cheers for now
headwax