Hello everyone, I would like some tips regarding what I can do to make my very basic weapon (made in Blender) work in GG. It's already animated (bobbing, reloading and shooting), and since its reload is off the screen and it was made to use no hands, I thought it would be easy to make it work.
So, I can make the entity itself work fine, but when it comes to the HUD.X, I'm not sure what to do. I did notice there's a bone for the firing called FIRESPOT, then I added that to my weapon. I learned that in the gunspec.txt file I need to specify the animations frames and sound frames (and some other things, as texture), so I did that too [NOTE: I used the Shotgun gunspec as my template, since my weapon was supposed to be a simple shotgun].
Ok, when I pick up my gun in game, I can see the shotgun Icon in the bottom left, but no model will show up, and it won't fire, nor reload. I even tried to open the GG shotgun and place mine in the same position (in the HUD.X model), but it still won't appear.

So, are there some other "mandatory" bones, like FIRESPOT that need to be added to the weapon? Is there something that might be going wrong in the gunspec? Since the gun isn't even shooting, I thought that the problem might be not only the model, but something about the configuration of gunspec.
I really don't want to rig my model with the existing animations, since my game won't have all that level of complexity. Just really wanted a basic weapon with shooting, bobbing and "off screen" reloading animation. Finally, is there a problem using Blender to model AND animate for GG? I've seen people animating entities and it worked. I did notice that regarding weapons Milkshape and Fragmotion are way more common, but they are unknown to me (and come on, Blender should be powerful enough for this task).

For now that's what I've got in my model: 72 Verts, 87 frames of Animation, 1 Bone (FIRESPOT) (All other animations were made manipulating the coordinates and rotation). It's also UV Mapped and textured in one single image file.

What am I missing, guys?
Thank you very much for reading this wall of text. I'm trying really hard to make this work and I've been studying GG avidly because I love it.

I can offer up the 3ds max rigs in the documents folder as FBX versions.
I believe they work in Blender, as I converted them for another user.
Take a look at these. Weapons HUDs are the most forgiving in GameGuru.
There will be the need to un-attach meshes from bones before you try and switch out the weapons, then re attach them after the new weapon is in you want. If you don't, the rig will break and the mesh will scramble or act unpredictable. There will be a lot or trial and error, so keep the original file, and save progress versions of your blender file. Mistakes will be made.

Let me know if they work for you.

The weapons model not showing up in Game Guru is because there is no bones assigned to it, and the standard shadard is for boned skinned meshes, of which all meshes need to be attached to at least a single bone in the rig. Choose the other weapons shader instead and see if that works. It is for vertex driven animations.

FIRESPOT is just a mesh or bone that is attached to the hand bone of which ever hand you want to hold the weapon. There should be a bone on the weapon to link them together.

Blender should be able to do this, but I use 3ds max myself instead. So maybe a Blender user will chime in.

Nope, they don't work properly in Blender, Blender has issues importing FBX, it has to be specific versions or it corrupts it

These are 2011 FBX files exported. What version works with Blender?

https://code.blender.org/2013/08/fbx-binary-file-format-specification/
Says version 2011 ascii version. This is an old article.

The fbx add-on that comes with the latest blender works best with version 10 I think, not sure which one that is, when I get home tonight I'll have a look at earlier versions of blender and see if they work better.

OK, sounds good. There has to be one that works.
Thanks.

Yeah, i'm sure there i will be, it will most likely be 2.49, that always seemed to be the most stable version for me. If i can get it to import properly in one version, i can save it out as a blender file and that way it will be usable in any version of blender, then re-post it up here if that's ok (might have to wait for the weekend for that though).

I posted a comment, edited it afterwards and it was gone , so I'm writing it again.

Thank you guys for your replies.

I downloaded the FBX files, but they were messed up in Blender
Tried these shaders with and without FIRESPOT bone: entity_basic.fx, weapon_basic.fx, weapon_bone.fx - None of them worked.
At least, after some trial and error, I was sure that the problem is with the model, not gunspec.

At first I thought the model might've been "off screen" all the time, but it couldn't be the case, since I positioned my model inside a GG's one, got the coordinates, scale and stuff, then applied to my original model.

There was a guy in some Steam forum who said that it's needed to "rig a biped character and attach the meshes to it".
Is it really necessary? I mean, my weapon is vertex driven and uses no arm rigs at all...

What else could I try, guys?
Thank you very much, again.

the majority of the weapons huds are bone driven. If you have made one of your own and it is vertex driven animation only, Post it here or send me a link in PM and I will see if I can get it to work.

Other then that bone rigs are the normal with any animation that is complex in motion and style.

I have converted them to FBX 2010 please try these ones these will also now work with Fragmotion.

@GraPhiX
Unfortunately, 2010's FBX won't load properly in Blender, in fact, they won't even show up. Haven't tried with fragMOTION, though.
Anyway, thank you for posting those, I appreciate your help!

@Pirate Myke
Thank you so much for helping me, it's very kind of you to be willing to make my weapon work.
I did manage to make it work today and this was the solution:

• Remove FIRESPOT bone.
• Tweak some settings in Blender regarding .x export.
• Change mesh origin/pivot point, so that the model wouldn't be off the screen.
• Create Idle animation (I was telling gunspec.txt to use "Idle = 0,0" before, since I didn't have an animation for that).
• Use weapon_basic.fx shader

I'm very happy that I could make a weapon almost from scratch (gunspec.txt was based off another weapon), I know it's very simple, because it's 100% vertex driven, but it's still very cool! Now it's time to move on with my TimeSplitters inspired game

Thanks again!

Glad you have it working. Now you will be making many more.

Nope, can't get it to import into blender at all, apparently it needs version 7100 or higher, but one of the few issues I have with blender is it's fbx import sucks and is very finicky.

Hi Belidos try the attached see if they work, I have done them as 2013 Binary (Blender usually only likes binary versions)

That one seems to build the rig properly, but the animations are missing.

Ooopss lol ok I will try again

here ya go spent all weekend sorting these for Blender hope I've done it right this time lol
Please let me know if these work for you

anyone tried these in Blender? I don't really want to install Blender it screws up Marmoset for some reason, I just want to know if these are correct so that I can post details of what settings to use

Haven't had a chance to yet, i'm a bit busy at the moment, hence why i haven't made any models lately. Will check it when i get a chance.

BTW you don't have to install Blender to use it, there is a version you can download and run directly without installing, i never install, i have an external hard drive with various versions on it i run it from

To get the standalne version choose the version from the page below, then click on the .zip version:
http://download.blender.org/release/

@GraPhiX
Thank you for posting those. Unfortunately, for me, in Blender 2.79, they are not working properly. The model is fine, but when I'm playing the animations, the arms are weird and the weapon itself won't move at all. Similar problem to what I had with Pirate Myke's FBXes.