Model and skin problems

Fix skins that T-pose, center the camera, put the health bar at the feet, show red or purple checkerboards, or lose sounds.

Intermediate

Fixes for custom hero models that look or act wrong, in ModelDoc or in game. Find your symptom below. Each fix points back to the step in the hero model swap guides that solves it.

Diagram: symptoms sorted by hero swap part. Part 1 Blender: bending, floating weapon, tiny or turned mesh. Part 2 ModelDoc: crashes, solid red mesh, missing material slot. Part 3 attachments: centered camera, health bar at the feet, missing sounds. Part 4 AnimGraph 2: A-pose or T-pose, hero does not turn, broken LODs. After a game update: export the original again and redo parts 3 and 4.

What you need

Source 2 Viewer

CSDK 12

The in-game console

Your skin's addon

Notepad++

or VS Code

Source 2 Viewer compares your model with the original hero. CSDK 12 opens your skin's addon in ModelDoc. The console shows errors that name your files. Click its chip to see how to turn it on.

First checks

Remove other mods for the same hero. When two mods ship the same file, the lower pak number wins.
Check your model's path and file name against Source 2 Viewer, letter by letter.
Open the console with F7 and read the errors that name your files.

Find your symptom

The model broke after a game update

Valve sometimes moves a hero's model to a new folder. It can also change the skeleton, camera setup, or animation graph. Your skin then stops loading or breaks.

Check the hero's current path in Hero names and file paths or in Source 2 Viewer.
Export the original hero again from the new build.
Redo the attachments and game data with part 3.
Redo the AnimGraph 2 links with part 4.
Check that your VPK holds no .vnmskel_c and nothing from scripts/.