[MDL ED] Trying to learn how to edit a model

[Your Computer]

So I changed all the references to the original files listed in the directory of the DAE file to the newly renamed ones. Most of them werent even in the DAE file, but dds and mat were in it (it said material instead of mat but i figured it was the same thing since I think mat is short for material). I crossed my fingers and opened it up and... HOORAH it didnt crash. Sadly it didnt work either, but baby steps im getting there. When I opened him up he has the same default skin. Originally before I did all this messing around (right after you guys introduced me to gimp) I made skins for the characters and were able to make them wear them by changing their material to the .mat file thing. However as soon as I start making changes this material seems to completey disappear. It now only shows the default skin to select with the same name as my new monster.mat and gives me no option to select my newer skin like before. Then again, when I would attach the skin that way it wouldnt show up in the level editor so I'm guessing that wouldnt work. What do I need to do now to get the model to wear the skin and keep it thus finally solving this dilemma? This is going to be the most complicated thing im going to do for this story, so once im done with this the rest shouldnt be too bad. Thanks for all your support and let me know of what I need to do.
EDIT: Im going to a camp today. I might be able to continue talking, but ill be back friday and I wont be able to make any changes till then. Still, If I can figure this out by the time I get back thatd be great. If I dont respond to any answers please dont take that as me having figured it out. In fact the more replies the better so ill have more to work with when I get back. Once again Thanks!

You weren't supposed to edit anything beyond the library_images::image::init_from elements in the DAE. The MAT file i was talking about can be created with the Material Editor of the HPL editor suite or generated with the Model Viewer of the HPL editor suite.

The thing about the monster is that it has animations to it, and technically these animations are just other DAE files. I'm not entirely sure how the game handles these other files in relation to the main DAE file, but you may have to repeat the process for these other files.