@A Holly Broccoli: You're welcome! I understand that "I learned it myself" is not really a great answer to give, but I hope the player model guide is also enough to help you get started as well like it was for me.

Also I should add, this strategy I use to make weapons C_ compatible works for Gmod, but there are some other source games that it doesn't work for, like left 4 dead 1/2, because doing this changes the order that the bones are defined in, which some source games don't like for some reason. There is a way to work around this, but it requires a different strategy that is harder and more time consuming by using bone constraints in Blender to make the C_ skeleton copy the original view model's skeleton for each animation.

If ya have any trouble, you can let me know and I'll try to help as best as I can when I have time.

Ah, no sweat. You were kind enough to reply in the end, and it's more helpful than you think. I'll check out MrFunreal's guide for further guidance; thank you for linking that. And I'm sorry to hear you're busy, I hope your life becomes less busy soon. Keep care!

@A Holly Brocoli: Sorry for the super late reply. I'm not sure how I never saw your comment. Anyway, I wish I could easily help ya directly, but I'm just way too busy with my personal life to do so. All I can really do is copy & paste what I told another user in a different mod I uploaded a while ago: [0/]

"@pessifan55: C_ Hands require that, on top of any weapon-specific bones, a viewmodel contains the same bones as the C_ hands themselves so that they have somewhere to bind to. So if the viewmodel you want to convert lacks that, then yes, you need to do Blender stuff (or use some other 3D model/animation tool) to add those bones. [1/]

It's unfortunately not as easy as renaming bones. Also unfortunately, I don't have a guide to give you. I didn't use one to learn how to do this specifically. I learned how to do source blender stuff after making L4D2 survivor mods for the first time w/ мяFunreal's guide . It is very helpful with getting you started, as it gives you the exact tools you need to allow Blender to mod for Source and how to use them. You also need to use Blender 2.9 or 3.x (which you can opt into thru the Betas tab if you install Blender on Steam) " 28 June 2024 Note: Last I checked, this no longer works. But you can still download old Blender versions from their official site. [2/]

"I can't explain the whole process, but the method I see modders sometimes use (and the one I used here) is taking the skeleton from the C_ hands model, importing it onto the viewmodel's reference .smd, posing the C_ hands skeleton as closely as possible inside the original viewmodel arms, merging the skeletons together, and finally parenting each C_ hand bone to it's corresponding bone on the original viewmodel arms. That effectively "puppets" the C_ hand skeleton with the original animations without needing to do any animating yourself. FYI, posing in Blender is finicky. The guide does tell you how to pose a skeleton and then save that pose, but sometimes things go wrong anyway. Usually looking up your problem on the internet will help you if anything weird happens. [3/]

"After exporting the new reference .smd, you also need to modify the viewmodel's .qc file. You need new $definebone lines for every bone & you need $bonemerge lines for every C_ hand bone. The guide I linked [above] explains how to make $bonemerge lines easily & make correct $definebone lines at section 7.04 all the way to the end of 7.05.2 and the section labeled $Definebones." 28 June 2024 Note: After I originally posted this, the guide I was referring to was updated and the definebones instructions were changed. I use the "slow approach" in the guide, which is the old method, but maybe the "fast approach" works in this case. Just remember not to follow any steps that are player model specific, and if you follow the "slow approach", don't listen to what it says about keeping all attach, forward, & weapon bones. You'll want to delete all of them. [4/]

"For all I know, there's a much faster & easier way to do this. The way I learned how to do this was, again, using the knowledge I gained from мяFunreal's guide and just trying things. [5/]

I would decompile & look at already existing C_ hand viewmodels to understand how the .qc file should look , and decompile L4D2 weapon mods to see how they did the process I just explained (some MW L4D2 [& I think GMOD?] weapon mods use this strategy. I sadly don't remember which ones) . (28 June 2024 Note: I think I was slightly crazy here. I think this was actually a method I figured out myself. I haven't been able to find any other mods that do this) Lastly, if the original viewmodel is waaaaay smaller or larger than the C_ hand arms, I have no clue how to fix that. I lucked out with the Doom 3 viewmodel arms being practically the same size as the C_ arms. For only 1 mod in my life did I manage to change the size of the orig. viewmodel for C_ hand purposes, but it took forever, the outcome wasn't super great, and I don't even remember how I did it." [6/]

That's everything I told pessifan, the other user who asked me about this. Again, I wish this wasn't the case but I really don't have much time to make a full guide myself. I can try to help you here and there if you have any issues, but I can't guarantee I'll answer fast at all. I hope this is adequate for ya. [7/]

add a spas12 stock to it, then it will be cool

would it be too much to ask if you could port XRGM1267's vanilla weapon fixes to Gmod as well? If so, could you maybe give me a lead in to how I would add c_hands to a model that doesn't feature them? (etc. HL2 weapon replacements off gamebanana)