Exporting models aproprietly for sources games? (GMOD)

[Sir Dog]

Ive been messing around with 3ds max for abit trying to learn the ropes and have made a model I want to use for my swep that im making in gmod. Unfortunatly most tutorials are quite old and im unsure if I should trust them. So I have three questions.

1. Do I need a texture on my model or can I just export it as is?
2. Does my model need a bone? A tutorial that I was reading said that one was needed but wasnt very clear why or how to even add one!
3. Does anyone know of any tutorials that will help my export my model for gmod using crowbar? (Or even post instructions here if its not too much trouble? )

[CaptainBigButt]

1) Your model doesn't "need" a texture but you're probably going to want one. If you export it without any textures, you'll simply have a fullbright weapon with the default purple/black missing texture, er, texture.

2) By default your model doesn't need a bone if it's simply a prop. Worldmodels will need at least a hand bone attached (ValveBiped.Bip01_R_Hand) to the handle of the weapon. Worldmodels will bonemerge with your model by default, so including a handle bone is what merges the weapon properly with your hand. In Source, a worldmodel for a weapon is [lower quality] prop version of the weapon you'll see in someone else's hands, on the ground, and so on. If this is a usable weapon, you might also want a viewmodel. In source, a viewmodel is the animated first person version which is usually the [higher quality version of the] weapon, sometimes stretched and cleaned up (unseen faces cut) with hands and animations.

3) I'll let someone else get to this. There aren't going to be any tutorials on using this since it just came out, but surely someone who uses it can post a quick guide for you.