i found my issue on facepunch, i was lacking a bumpmap for it to actually affect. thank you though

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=201563787

I've pretty much got the model done, and i'm happy with it, but it's still pretty much a priority to get good phong/rim lighting. I edited the vmt, but it didnt seem to make a difference.

weapon VMT:

I agree fully. I'm moreso making this as practice. Plus, McVee is potentially getting his own update, and he mentioned any weapons or hats that fit his movie pretty well would have a chance to get picked for the update too.

Oh, another question. So i've got this model, Is there any special circumstance i need to fufill for it to be allclass/multi-class? or just upload it to the workshop with the desired characters marked?

Yep, that did the trick. just repositioned the model so the bone was where it needed to be. Thanks for all the help, i'll be sure to credit you for 100% of valve's cut

Yeah, that did the trick. Thanks a lifetime.

the weapon_bone seems to be on the top tip of the weapon rather than in the middle, where someone would hold it. i suppose i can crack it open in blender again to diagnose this.

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "models/weapons/c_items/c_coaled_fury.vtf"
}

I've messed with the VTFEdit settings back when i made sprays and mods, etc and i'm just figuring i set some sort of settings that make the model see everything as invisible

It's a workshop, none of it is copyrighted property. Besides the fact that there's no legal terms to say "i made this hat, don't make something similar", it's, in my opinion, just about whether the first one needs any improvements. If it's "good in theory, bad in practice" i understand if you want to remake it, but if what they made is good it seems a little jerky to try and 1-up them when they put in enough effort for it to be good.

Don't forget sometimes 2 people just happen to make similar hats and when one releases earlier, the 2nd guy feels pressured to release his because people will ridicule him, despite him developing it before he know of the first. everything has a backstory

That seems to have fixed the issue, and HLMV loads the VMT correctly, however now the weapon is invisible. Are there specific VTFEdit settings? I assume that's the problem, i just imported the origina .tga and then exported the VTF/VMT without changing any settings.