Mainly I use Blender (and noticed the 'old' but helpful tuts here), and a friend also let me use his Maya because of the 3p problem I'm having.

The wep is in UT2004 with the help of a friendly scripter. In fact I've made a several of custom weps and a vehicle - but anim only. Everything works ok in UT except the pistol in third person view. The pistol shows up in the player's hand (F4 view) but no flash, shells or reload action. In 1p the flash is distorted, I presume because of the weird 'tip' problem I'm having:

I think it all goes back to the 3p bone 'tip.' (btw I've checked the scripts and the correct character anims are named) Importing 3p np, everything is where it should be, but after I save/reload Unrealed the pistol 3p tip has moved beside the handgrip of the pistol. (I noticed that the 'Tip' name after import to UT moves to lowercase 'tip,' if that means anything...)

Thankfully 3p is pretty straightforward (but obviously I'm missing something ). I've used Blender to export (2.49b) with Mod15_opti exporter. Also Maya 6 but results are the same both times, tip moves back by pistol handgrip. Maya, I've set the reference pose; preferred angle, presuming it could those. I wondered about changing the 3p's position - turning it and flipping it in relation to the 1stP pistol but in UT the same: the 'tip' defaults to entirely the wrong position beside the pistol handgrip. And, I'm presuming no weight painting is necessary for 3p models? Well I tried that too and weighted the tip to the pistol nose - and the nose was dragged back to the handgrip with the tip...

So ppl, after trying all sorts I'm totally stumped - and I never ever want to google +3p again - corrupting my innocent mind

If perchance I find an answer on my long, long weary search for answer I'll post it here so the world can know the truth of wandering @#$@#% 3p tips.

So thanks in advance!

Did you set a key frame of the third person model? Having a dummy 1 frame animation might fix it, dunno.

Gave it a try but nope, @#$@#% tip. I'm thinking maybe it goes back to scripting after I did a search with my UTk4 log info "AttachToBone: Tried to attach invalid actor to bone tip..."; and also: Log: "PlayAnim: Sequence 'Reload' not found for mesh 'Cpl'" The search seemed to point to scripting - someone mentioned tip problems and not extending (subclassing??) from 'weapon,' but instead from 'assault rifle' (in their case - mine is a pistol) so it's scripting, I guess...

I'll talk to my pal the scripter, who's having gf troubles so "fix my bones" will be last on his mind

So thanks, and if you can think of anything else while I'm trying to persuade my pal to take up monasticism, appreciate!

Yeah, sorry I can't help you, I never ran into this problem before. The skin weights are all proper, I would assume, right?

There might be some code making a bone rotate when it's brought up. You could check in the initialize/bring up code.

You should try setting all the bone weight to the tip and see what happens. You can find out if the model moves or changes or not. If it doesn't affect the model after changing the weight, then something is seriously weird.

If you want, you could send me the Blender file and I can take a look at it. It might be something pretty simple.

I haven't been weighting it lately, well on and off, this to that. When I weighted the tip to the front of the gun. the tip pulled the front around to the handgrip area with it, argh.

Not sure what you mean by: "There might be some code making a bone rotate when it's brought up. You could check in the initialize/bring up code." The scripting problem I guess... I hope it's that.

Thx, I'll pm you the file.

Modelling is a hard path to follow it takes patence and understanding both which i lack if you do sort out your modelling problem and make guns for BW it can earn you alot of respect both on runestorm and off so keep trying

Hey thanks again for your support, oh great master grizzly ^^ (I saw your post in the welcome area, so that's just for you mate, hehe).

I'm fairly certain now the problem goes back to the script. I found an old map with my first wep and that used a different script and that tip was aok. Anyway after the scripter reconciles with his girl we'll get a solution and I'll write up here what went wrong - with the script.

Problem of moving tip major clue discovered by the genius scripter.

The 3p insists on linking itself to the anim, which the scripter discovered when he changed the anim, which should not have been connected to the 3p mesh anyway!!
Connecting different anims the tip moved around.

'Unlink' doesn't work and this could possibly be only in the mod. Solution scripter thinks, separate files for 3p and regular anim. If not maybe a dummy anim... Anyway that's the bones of it. Thanks again you guys for your support!

Just do a dummy animation, make it one frame and call it Idle or something. Easiest solution.