SMD Exporting for Max 2009 Animation Problems Thread

Hi there, long time reader, used to frequent the site wayyyyyy back when it looked a lot different, recently gotten back into modding after giving up on Half Life a long time ago.

So, i've followed the fantastic tutorial for Half Life 2 making a weapon from start to finish, I know how to model already anyway so I ignored that section, but the rigging, animation, etc I followed to the T with one exception, I am attempting to replace the HL2 357 instead of the CSS Glock.

Long story short, I got it ingame and surprise surprise, nasty purple checkers, but also, completely ridiculous animation problems, the animations don't even resemble the originals they're just crazy. I've tried everything, recompiling, even re-animated a couple of them from the beginning and they came out in a similarly crazy fashion.

Now, there is one thing that I couldn't get to work, which might explain the texture being missing, I couldn't get the exporter to work with the multi/sub object material without throwing a warning and skipping the mesh. So it's a standard material instead.

But I have no idea whatsoever why the animations went crazy... Also, the gun is on the left side, now, you might be thinking "Well duhh" seeing as I modelled it and animated it on the left side, but the tutorial said that a lot of HL2 stuff is done on the left side and flipped ingame...

So yeah, what's going on? All this ridiculous compile stuff (after spending a whole 6 hours trying to fixe numerous steam errors) pooting out basicly F-all at the end of it. I'm completely at the end of my tether with this, it's the same long-winded stuff that caused me to give up in the first place. I guess i've gotten used to Unreal being a lot simpler.

Anyway, ranting aside, does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing my problems? I'd be so appreciative if anyone could help me get it sorted, this is infuriating me.

Cheers
The A Drain

Edit:
The exporter i'm using is wunderboys Max 2009 exporter. I can't find much info on it but it's the only one I can find that works for 2009.

Edit:
Ok, so I figured out I had put the texture in the wrong folder. *slaps self* However, instead of purple checkers i'm now seeing nothing at all. The gun totally disappears :[ Hairline is receding rapidly.
Edit: Ok. Fixed the texture, phew. Animations still whacked though, and i've exported and recompiled multiple times.

Edited by: The_A_Drain

but the tutorial said that a lot of HL2 stuff is done on the left side and flipped ingame...

I've never heard it to flip before.

Well, out of curiosity, I put the left handed model into CSS, and it appears on the right side of the screen.

But yeah, animations still whacked :\ Pulling my hair out trying to figure out what's wrong, any idea?

Cheers

i'm not familiar with the source engine but I'd say check your pivot. It's one of the most important thing in animation to watch.

No, Half-Life 2 stuff is not modelled on the left side and flipped to the right. It only does that in CSS.

Ok, that makes more sense to me (I've done plenty of stuff for HL2, but never CSS)