Hello Avagantamo,

I am the modeller who is working with Captaingoodstuff on the gun (he posted this yesterday on my behalf.) First of all, thank you for replying. The normals are perfectly consistent in blender, however, I tried normalizing the model to see what would happen. Most of the mesh behaved as it should have (normals that were inverted appeared inverted in - game) however, the glitched parts appeared just the same. I tried flipping only the glitched portions as well, however, this ended up with the same result. As a last resort, I appended the entire model and skeleton into a new blender file and exported that as its own SMD. Goodstuff put it in - game, and we had the exact same errors.

The glitched portions in - game show no abnormalities in blender, and the entire model is treated as a single mesh. Does appending and then joining a mesh to another with ctrl + j do something that I wasn't aware of? As far as I can tell, appending imports a mesh, and ctrl + j joins one mesh to another. Unfortunately, everything that was joined in this manner appears invisible in - game, despite looking fine in blender.

Any other suggestions?

~Freedan

Oh joy, rigging. Never fear, I can help you. :)

First, you need to use the bones from the original hand model. This is the easiest way to get the correct number of bones and to ensure that they are all properly named. To do this, have the engineer model file on hand (excuse the pun).

Go to your hand model, and then to file > append (Append allows you to put objects from one 3D file into another). This will bring up a filepath menu. Find the engineer's file. Click on it.

The file will then open, revealing specific objects within it such as the engineer model, the engineer skeleton, etc. You will want to select the engineer's skeleton. Once you have his skeleton, select it in object mode. Then, Tab into Edit mode and delete any bones that do not control the hand.

Now, take the "hand bones" and (still in edit mode, NOT pose mode) proceed to move them into your hand model. The reason for doing this is edit mode is that changes in pose mode do not reflect in edit or object mode, while changes in edit mode do. Once you have your bones positioned the way you like them, you are ready for the next step.

For the next step, go to object mode, and select the hand model, then the bones (in that order). Then, press Ctrl + P. A menu will appear. Select the option "With Empty Groups." You can use Automatic weights if you want to, but they can be messy at times. Once you have parented the bones to your hand, go to the groups tab, which is right next to the materials tab. Its icon is a little white triangle.

In this menu, you will find a section named "Vertex Groups." Now, select the hand mesh and tab into edit mode. Go back to the Vertex Groups menu. Within it, you will find the names of your bones. Select one, then select the part of the hand mesh you think it should control. E.G. if you selected a pinkie bone in the Vertex Groups menu, select the pinkie in the hand mesh. When you are happy with your selection, Click "assign" (Under the Vertex Groups menu). Anything that was selected when "Assign" was pressed will now be controlled by the bone you selected in the vertex groups menu. To undo this, click "remove." You can double - check your selections by clicking on the bone name, then on "select" to highlight whatever that bone is controlling.

Repeat the above for all of the hand bones.

Once you have rigged all of the bones following the instructions above, you are ready to test your rig. Go into pose mode and rotate the fingers a little bit. If you see that a bone is deforming the hand incorrectly, check your vertex groups first. If that looks okay, you will need to do some weight painting. To do this, select your hand in object mode. Go to the menu that says object mode, and change your mode to weight paint mode.

[IMPORTANT: Before you weight paint, save a backup!!!]

In weight paint mode, select the faulty bone using the Vertex Groups menu. You will now see a mess of blue and red appear on the hand. Here's how it works: Anything that is dark blue will not be affected by the bone at all. Anything that is bright red will be completely affected by the bone (E.g. If the bone turns 90 degrees, the red area will also turn 90 degrees). Anything in between those two colors will be affected in varying degrees. You have probably already figured that green will be mildly affected by the bone, and orange very affected but not completely.

Now, find the area that was having problems when you moded the faulty bone. Look at its colors. Use the weight paint menu to adjust the color of your brush, then paint over the faulty area. Test the model again in pose mode, then weight paint again if you see problems. Continue until you are happy with the way your hand mesh deforms.

Congratulations, you have now successfully rigged a hand!
Sorry if that seemed a bit overly complicated. I tried to make it as easy to follow as I could. If you need help, reply to this message with any questions you might have.

You're welcome. Good luck!

Hi Mooses,

Glowing / Shiny effects on Source Engine models are accomplished through the use of an Alpha channel. An alpha channel is simply a black and white image ... the brighter the area of an Alpha channel, the more shiny an object will be. Depending on what program you are using for your texture, there are different methods for applying an alpha channel to your texture. There are plenty of tutorials for GIMP and Photoshop concerning applying Alpha channels.

Keep in mind that shininess will not show up in-game unless you set it up in your QC file. I don't really know anything about code, but I can help you out with textures and modelling. Someone else here can probably help you with the coding aspect of making a weapon shiny.

Also, concerning glowing textures, this article may be helpful: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Glowing_Textures

A few tips for making your Alpha channel (Note that before every one of these steps, you should save a backup!! It will save you a great deal of headache. I know from experience ...):

1. VERY IMPORTANT Be sure to include a base layer in your texture file with the flat colors of your texture (A.K.A. A layer without shading or details). You will need the ability to select entire portions of your texture based on their color. Don't edit this layer, unless you are planning on changing the color scheme of your weapon.
2. Once you are happy with your texture, save a desaturated (uncolored) version of your texture. Make sure that this version includes shading and details. Open it as a layer in your program of choice.
3. Using your base layer, select portions of the weapon's texture (I would select them by color, if you're going to base shininess off of color) to adjust. Using these selections, go to the desaturated layer, and make those portions either lighter or darker, depending on how shiny you want them to be. This will take some experimentation in order to find the right look. Save the edited desaturated image.
4. Open your desaturated image in your texture file and make it your Alpha channel.
5. Check the weapon in-game. If you don't like how it looks, adjust the Alpha channel.

Hello! For those who don't know me (Which is all of you), I'm the guy who's been working with CaptainGoodstuff on a custom gun for the engineer. He does the code, I do the modelling / texturing and other blender related processes such as animation and rigging. My issue arises when it comes to rigging. I know the basics of it, but getting the bones in my model to work with source engine has proven to be a pain.

What I need is an explanation as to how I should set up my bones for my model. I want one bone for the handle, and one bone for the clip, which should then move whenever I grab its respective bone. I know that there are many ways of doing this inside blender, but I need to figure out a way to do this that is compatible with source engine. If anyone has an explanation as to how I should do this (keeping in mind that I have only a very limited knowledge of rigging) I would be greatly appreciative!

Thanks,
Freedan

P.S. If needed, I can provide images of the compiled code for the gun, bone setup, etc.