Help regarding deformation on c_arms

[analog patrol]

Damn I did think it may not let me upload pictures when I just joined. Anyone know how long I would need to wait to be allowed to send pictures? For now I will just try to explain my problem without them

Heya all, I have an issue with a character I am porting into a playermodel. My problem is that the hands on my c_arms are very deformed (though it seems to only be the palm).

Ill try to send some pictures showing what it looks like, but it looks like you cant send pictures in the server if you just joined so hopefully it works.
(Turns out this was right, hopefully this imgur link works? https://imgur.com/gallery/playermodel-c-arms-deformation-TKBo0s7)

What is weird is that the hands look perfectly fine on the character itself (or at least as good as the topology allows), but then it is broken on the c_arms version despite them using the same weight painting and topology. The only difference I can think of here is the changes to the skeleton and the placement of the arms in 3d space (which was a step in the tutorial below and I doubt this is the issue, since I am fairly certain I did this step correctly).

Since the hands on the playermodel itself looks fine, I will include a comparison of the fist weapon equipped on both the playermodel, and the c_arms to help showcase the issue.

I have been following the tutorials here:
https://youtu.be/LtA0YGxZXug?si=CacA7HGMNthBO0RC

Everything else has gone very well and I am on the final video, and any problems I have encountered I was able to figure out, but I can't seem to fix the hand issue even after countless hours of looking things up and trying different things. Maybe I am missing something?

I am guessing more information will be needed, so please ask if anything extra is needed and I will share it here. Also apologies if I have not explained things the best, I am kind of learning this as I go. I am hoping someone knows something I could do to help fix this as it would be a shame to get this far to only fall at the last hurdle. Thanks! ❤️

[dusty hemlock]

you have $definebones in your qc

remove them

[analog patrol]

Thanks for the reply, I just removed them from the qc file for the arms, but there seems to be no effect. Is there anything else you think looks wrong in the file?:

// Created by Crowbar 0.71

$modelname "pixelscollide/tali/tali_pm_arms.mdl"

$bodygroup "arms"
{
studio "tali_carms_aligned.smd"
}

$surfaceprop "flesh"

$contents "solid"

$illumposition -0.637 0 35.954

$eyeposition 0 0 65

$ambientboost

$mostlyopaque

$cdmaterials "models\pixelscollide\tali_mats"

$cbox 0 0 0 0 0 0

$bbox -13 -13 0 13 13 72

//$proceduralbones "arms.vrd"

$includemodel "f_anm.mdl"
$includemodel "f_anm.mdl"
$includemodel "f_gst.mdl"
$includemodel "f_pst.mdl"
$includemodel "f_shd.mdl"
$includemodel "f_ss.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_shared.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_ss.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_gestures.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_postures.mdl"
$includemodel "alyx_animations.mdl"
$includemodel "alyx_postures.mdl"
$includemodel "alyx_gestures.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_shared.mdl"
$includemodel "humans/female_ss.mdl"

This is the altered qc file that was given to me in the tutorial, so I don't know if anything else is going to be wrong.

[dusty hemlock]

you can reduce that entire file to just

$modelname "pixelscollide/tali/tali_pm_arms.mdl"

$bodygroup "arms"
{
    studio "tali_carms_aligned.smd"
}

$cdmaterials "models\pixelscollide\tali_mats"
$ambientboost
$mostlyopaque

$sequence "idle" "tali_carms_aligned.smd"

or simply use $body instead of $bodygroup

$modelname "pixelscollide/tali/tali_pm_arms.mdl"
$body "arms" "tali_carms_aligned.smd"

$cdmaterials "models\pixelscollide\tali_mats"
$ambientboost
$mostlyopaque

$sequence "idle" "tali_carms_aligned.smd"

c_arms don't do anything, there's no need to include the player animations on the model

they're just a cosmetic that bonemerges with the weapon viewmodel

if you still have an issue with the hand rotation, then rotate the bone in blender & recompile

[analog patrol]

Thats good to know, I have changed the qc file to that. Thank you for that. It did not fix the hand issue but I am just about to try rotating the hand bone. I will let you know what happens 😃