recalculate the normals using the recalculate button in the mesh tools on the lefthand bar

to mirror the shoe onto the other foot, yes you need to reassign the bones to the opposite. you can do this by selecting all the "right foot" vertices (assuming your original is the right), click remove to remove it from that bone, then find the "left foot" bone and click assign

not sure how unfortunately, i'm still a bit of a novice. i'll bump the thread for you though.

press "A" in the UV editor to deselect everything (press it again to select everything)

the "Keep UV and Edit Mode Selection in Sync" button basicially decides whether selecting a vertices will select all edges the vertices is present (example:http://puu.sh/82CpZ.png)
if you don't want it to do this, select the part of the model you want to edit (press "C" for selecting faster) and then toggle that "Keep UV and Edit mode" etc button. the rest of the UV but that selection will dissapear, and you can now move the vertices freely rather than every linked part (example: http://puu.sh/82Cyt.png)

i believe it's [img]Image Link[/img]

have you parented the hat to the bones correctly? aswell as CTRL+A to keep location/rotation?

I'm also experiencing this. very annoying as i'd just gotten back into modelling and now i can't even import.

ah, it's fine. i reverted to a working render, since it was the same.

so i followed this tutorial
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170877216#131107

and i got my beard fully facial flexxed for every key, however when rendering it dmx and trying it in the importer, it does not move. i swear it worked in an earlier render, is there a setting that potentially stops the flexes i mightve clicked?

I'm really not sure on the weapon, i'm just as new as you honestly
my only guess would be to remove all of that items files from your tf2 directory, then recompile it again. if it doesnt work, the issue might be related to one of your files like the vmt or qcf

dont think i did. never tried itemtest. is your vmt/vtf in the correct place your qcf says? are you checking the same model in both model viewer and itemtest, or 2 different locations