How To Make a Hl2 Weapon Model From Start To Finish? Thread

Hi, I really would like to get into weapon modeling for Half-Life 2, but I can't find any good tutorials. I've been searching for days and haven't found anything good. Does anyone know where I can find a good tutorial for Gmax or XSI Mod Tool to make a weapon for half life 2, animating it, and getting it in game? I can't find anything.

i used many different tutorials from different sources and for many different platforms. just because you watch a max tutorial doesn't mean that you cant use the methods used in mod tool. you just need to understand how to cross it over into the other program using the tools given to you. i learned most of my weapon modeling strategys from max tutorials but i use mod tool. as for rigging and exporting, i can understand where it can be difficult to find tutorials. but even so, watch the max tutorials on how to do animations with the given HL2 character rig and learn how to envelope meshes to bones in XSI and you will have it down.

learning this stuff involves a little intuitiveness. you have to actually "Search" beyond the usual "how to make a hl2 weapon model". the stuff is out there, you just have to pull it from different sources.

Like holloweddarkness already said searching for a tutorial on "how to make a hl2 weapon model and implementing it" is kind of useless as the chances are high that noone takes that themself that much time to write that kind of *uber* long tutorial.

There Various tutorials out there concerning Modeling with Programm XYZ(whatever you use but GMax is pretty good for starters if you ask me.).
So i'd recommend you to start out with Basic modelling and developing your own workflow and get used to various methods that can be used.

If you're finished with that i'm afraid that you have to get out of Gmax, i don't know if it's compatible with the 3DS Max SMD Importer/Exporter...
Also you will need a VMT Plugin for Valve's Texture format.

Well, You'll have to Unwrap your weapon model so you can texture it(This step is needed to assign the Texture coordinates to the model + you will need to do this to know what part of the gun has to painted where in the texture). For 3dsmax i'd recommend the Texporter plugin that once you have Unwrapped your model let's you export the Unwrap as an image in any format you'd like.

When your Model and Skin is done and everything seems fine you will have to Import some existing weapon(using the SMD importer) with it's bones. You can scale your weapon according to the size of the hand or the existing weapon. You'll have to remove the existing and put yours in place. When using Gmax or 3Dsmax you'll have to use the Skin modifier to Rig your model to the Existing bones.

Animations can be made pretty easily but to make them look real you gotta take yourself some time. Simply activate the Animations Panel on Gmax/3ds and set it to Autoset keys and get going.

When this all is done you will have to Export a) your model(including hands) as a Reference SMD and the Bones(excluding model and hands) as animation smd.

after that you'll need to look up some Converting tutorial for HL2.

So the Tutorials you need:
Basic Modeling/Weapon Modeling
Unwrapping and Skinning
Model Rigging
Animating
Converting

Make sure to take your time on EVERYTHING of this to have a good result.
A last hint from me: make sure the weapons animation names have the same as the existing one had otherwise they don't work ingame.

Hope that helps a little. =)