3D Max 6 = animation issues and material editor issue

[smoreland]

Hi
im new to this forum, infact this is my first post
Hi all

im fairly new to 3d max and 3d modelling and animation
anyways 2 issues 1 has.

Issue 1:
i have a animation of a simple house, for windows i have box's with a material attached to it, the material being a pic of a window. only wen i attach the material to the object (the box) the box turns grey

i export it to windows media player only .
i do this by choosin

animation menu > make preview
output = .AVI
compressor = Microsoft Video 1
and then create

wen the animation is exported to windows media player the objects with materials attached to them are all grey, how do i fix this????

issue 2:

refairing back to issue 1, when i attach a material to a object, the object turns grey, is there no way i can make it so the material can be seen in perspective, top, front and left views instead of the object being grey ?

Thanks alot hope some 1 can help.

Ian M