[DeeZire]

Only did it by replacing like-named unused asset files, although the problem does not appear to affect audio/video (only models and textures). Had to resort to STR format too, CSF generated the 'already defined that string' errors

[Hostile]

It seems there are so many good textures that reusing skins isn't all that bad. Yet someone here tried to use a model named by an existing asset and could not get it to work. Did you do anything special but make it and name it accordingly?

[Koen]

Perhaps if we can edit asset.dat we can solve this problem. I have zero connections inside EA, perhaps Deezire can ask how our "unknown" value can be computed.
The 'main' problem why it is not working is that the asset.dat file is storing offsets into the W3D file, so if your new model does not have the exact same header layout, then it won't work without editing asset.dat.
Unfortunately we won't be able to add new entries to asset.dat without knowing what the big "unknown" value does.