Shared texture objects/CAS

Thanks for answering! I've had issues recategorize items from My CC if they're merged, I seem to break a lot of cc this way, so I definitely must be doing something wrong or I'm missing something. Maybe it only breaks certain types of items or older cc and I didn't know, or they're defaults/overrides and I didn't realize? I found comments suggesting it's obvious when a package is merged but I can never tell, my only clue is sometimes it has only one swatch in cc management even though I know it's supposed to have multiple, and if I save it that way any other swatches from the merged items don't show up in my game anymore. I haven't tried opening a merged file package from My Projects because I assumed it would break it, though, I can try that, it might help me figure it out more.

It seems like different creators use different methods of making texture dependent objects, or linked, idk the right words. Pierisims, Peacemaker, Brazenlotus, and Sforzinda are creators off the top of my head that do this in different ways. Sometimes it seems very simple like a right and left end table and the texture is in one of the packages, I think I figured out how to do that in warehouse. Other times it seems like the files utilize BG textures in some way. One creator I can't remember had a stand alone texture file for several related objects. But the specific problem I had recently was with a Sforzinda CAS item just missing color tags, which I personally always use in CAS. I unmerged the file, added the color tags, kept every item in my game (I did reduce the number of nested folders), and something I did broke it. This particular set only works for me if I don't touch it, and the creator mentions the linked textures in the notes so they seem aware that some people just like to unmerge packages and I don't think it should cause a problem as long as nothing is removed. It's happened with files from this creator multiple times but they mostly tag correctly and the items are good quality so now I just leave them alone, but it's also happened with other creators i avoid now but want to use (tagging every single color and category including situation and allow for random, even on overlays, and I can't fix it) and it really seems like I'm missing something. I do make BB objects for personal use so aside from cc management I'm also interested in learning more about this to reduce file sizes on variations, I just don't know where to go next.