No, it works well for nv_ant.xml because the texture for ant is RGB value instead of image file. For the kitchen scene in my case, the texture in the xml is like:
material name=“counter_1_front_group_counter_base” texture=“flat/dark_blue” shininess=“0.1” reflectance=“0.1”/>
So the conclusion is texture file ‘flat/dark_blue’ cannot be loaded through python code.