When I import the Garand ref.smd it seems that the whole rifle is one mesh and then moving the bolt_latch bone that part of the mesh just gets twisted etc, instead of a seperate latch object is moving.

How can I prevent this from happening?

It seems that it always gets exported to one whole mesh.
But how can you recompile this if all "parts" are merged into a whole?

I think you'd need the original model, which may be in different parts. Or you could go through and select all the verts that make up the bolt I guess. I'm not totally sure about this, though, so don't quote me on it.

I think you'd need the original model, which may be in different parts. Or you could go through and select all the verts that make up the bolt I guess. I'm not totally sure about this, though, so don't quote me on it.

So for this model you'd have to import it and then make it into "objects" again?

Anyone who did modify the garand and got it to export correctly?

Are you importing this SMD into Max per chance?

If so look at the skin modifier - its probably got a bunch of extra bones in the nodes list that are irrelevant to the weapon. For example you might find a smdimport bone which you can delete from the scene/list.

What tends to happens if you're using cannonfodders importer is it adds ALL bones to all skin modifiers and if no vertices are explicitly assigned to a bone it's default envelope tends to "snare" vertices at will. If you take those extraneous bones out it'll return control of the vertices to the correct ones.

Yes, importing smd to max (8)

Hm it might be the skin modifier.
But to be honest, I don't know much about that modifier.
I know you can add bones.
But does it assign bones to a specific part of the mesh, is that what is does?
I will mess around with it a bit more, thanks for your help, I'll see if it works.

Btw, does that skin modifier somhow cause the compiler to give me the "bone not found for bbox" or something like that.

Well the skin modifier is fairly simple in what it does. It takes a bone and applys an envelope to it. This envelope literally "envelopes" vertices and assigns them to the bone. The envelop can be adjusted, weighted, etc so it affects vertices based on the distance to the bone. In most cases it use vertex mode where you can specify whe weight of each individual vertex per bone by hand.

Usually you dont add ALL the bones in your model to the skin modifier for a specific mesh. For example, when I model player models I don't add anything but the neck/head bones to the head mesh skin modifier.

However, cannonfodder's importer imports everything as a single mesh and adds all bones to the skin modifier. It also creates a "root" bone for the mesh, usually called "smdimport" which gets included in the modifier bone list. Because this has a default envelope it sometimes snares certain vertices which pulls them out of shape.

As I said, often just deleting the bone solves it (its not needed anyway) as its stops it's envelope influencing other vertices.

As for the bone not found - it usually means that a bone you are trying to attach something to has been deemed un-needed by the compiler and removed. Usually a bone with an attachment is kept but unless you have a vertex assigned to it or something else it'll get taken out. To be honest with v_models I dont think you need bbox's anyway.

Wow before I call you a god, I got one problem left.

Yes it's the wrist.
It doesn't seem to work somehow.

1) I placed the male.vrd in where the qc file is.
2) I added $proceduralbones "male.vrd" at the end of the sequences so this line will be the last one.

Anything I overlooked?

He is not a god.

His proper title is "HL Engine Demigod"

That should be good enough. Although open the reference SMD and the vrd in a text editor and just double check that the bone names match. They should do but you never can tell.

That should be good enough. Although open the reference SMD and the vrd in a text editor and just double check that the bone names match. They should do but you never can tell.
I have done that, also place the line in different places.
I still can't figure it out.
Is there anyway to debug it so I can find the problem another way?
It is driving me crazy.