Could be one of a few possibilities (or a combination of):
1) Model > Duplicate > Setup. Make sure that materials + textures are activated in the "duplicate" column. Since you're instancing animation, you may also want to activate the box in the "animation" column if your materials/textures are animated.
2) View (letter) > Setup. Make sure that textures are activated for all objects, not just selected. Sometimes if blending approximation is set to alpha, your textures will disappear if the alpha is zero (black). Set to "without mask" to get them back.
3) If neither of the above work, then make sure you haven't applied a material or texture to the instance or else it will override the inherited material/texture from the original object source. If your instance is part of a hierarchy, double check to make sure the material/ texture ins't propagating down.
4) If all else fails, select the instance and do a Matter > Mat_Oper > Associate and click on the source material. This will update the instance to match (or come close to) the original.
Matt
Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com