So, after somewhat succesfully re origining some models to my liking, i decide to try to eliminate the clipping problems that plague them all. So i take a gander at the QC, write down the coordinates for future use (and because often when recompiling it tells me there was some error with a bone, even though i never touched the stuff, forcing me to decompile and lose my current coordinates). So after decompiling it again, and imputing the coordinates again, moving said model up a little on the Z axis i give it a try ingame. Well, even though i only changed the Z axis, it somehow got like 6 ft in front of the player, and like a foot to the left. How did it get there? I sure didn't do it. Another thing i've run across when using the Z axis (for some reason only this one) is that sometimes a negative number moves the model up, and sometimes that same number will move it down. It never is consistant. So with all of this, re origining models is EXTREMELY time consumeing, especially since it takes about 2-3 minutes just to load the game to see what the model looks like. So anyways, my point here is, has anyone else run accross these problems, and is there any way to avoid them?

When you decompile a .mdl it sets it current origns to 0 0 0. So if you knew the defaults were 7 7 7, and you wanted to change it so its 7 7 8, and you type $origin 7 7 8 in the qc, you've effectivly given the gun a origin of 14 14 15.

If you want to move it a tad, just start at 0 0 0 and add from there.

but in what order do you work in then?
Decompile the original - give it a origin - compile - check it out ingame - then decompile the re-originated model? or do you work on the "old" qc of the original?

I use the last thing, so its real easy to adjust it bit by bit. And it saves some time in this dull process :o

It's best to compile as little as possible, since decompiling can cause texture creep, resulting in nasty black lines around your models. It can cause other problems as well so try to use the files from the first time you decompiled.

When you decompiled you lost the origins that were there to begin with, since almost no weapons are compiled with 0 0 0 origins. So you have to first get the default origins (I belive they're 0 0 -25) and then go from there to change it.

EDIT: Oh and Trig, I've never had a problem with texture creep.

Yeah, i don't decompile/compile the model every time i want to edit the origins, i just edit the same QC file. but the problem is that when i go and try to compile it again, nearly every time it gives me a message close to this:
BMP skin4.bmp [128 252] (100%) 33024 bytes
BMP 2-slink.bmp [496 345] (100%) 171888 bytes
BMP 1-slink.bmp [504 504] (100%) 254784 bytes
BMP 4-slink.bmp [604 249] (100%) 151164 bytes
BMP 3-slink.bmp [596 389] (100%) 232612 bytes
BMP wood.bmp [608 409] (100%) 249440 bytes
BMP hands.bmp [252 254] (100%) 64776 bytes
BMP us_sleeve.bmp [464 497] (100%) 231376 bytes
BMP axis_sleeve.bmp [252 126] (100%) 32520 bytes
sequence reload has event (101) after last frame (95)
************ ERROR ************
cannot find bone Bone69 for bbox

Now, i never even went near anything after $scale, or even anything before it. So anyways, after this happens like i said before, i have to decompile therefore losing the current coordinates. And another odd thing that happens, is that say i do get a brand new QC file for ever edit, the Y axis resets to like 75 every time. None of the others do that, but if i even want the model on the screen i have to put in new Y coordinates every time. I just want to know what i'm doing wrong to recieve the above error.

Oh ****, that's easy. Just delete the hitbox information. It happens to me too, but it's not that big a deal. Should fix at least one problem, maybe the whole shebang.