I am attempting to create a new weapon for Doom 3, and I have my model pretty much in 3DS Max. Some questions.

Do I group all of the pieces of the gun together, or will that keep it from being easily animated?

I tried exporting it as an MD5Mesh, but when I attempted to import it back in, nothing appeared in Max.
Edit: When I export, I get an error message about there being no skin modifier.

Can I apply a bump map just like I would a skin, only with a greyscale image?

Are there any tutorials for animating custom weapons?

Thanks.

Animating a weapon or anything else, if you don't have a skin modifier and you're apparently not sure what that is, you should take a look at the basic tutorial of "Animated Prop Meshes for Doom 3" on Brain Trepaning's page: http://www.trepaning.com/d3Vids/d3Vids.htm

I watched the video. And I now know how to apply a skin modifier and include the bones. However, do I apply the skin modifier to the whole gun, or just the parts I want to animate? Furthermore, how will this affect how I group/attach the pieces of the gun and export it as an md5mesh?

You apply the skin modifier to the whole gun. The parts that are not animated still have to be assigned to a bone, for example the root bone of your collection of bones, that never moves.
How you organize the pieces of the gun inside 3dsmax to get them to export depends on which of the two exporters you use. Mine wants to have everything in one mesh (if you have different textures on the parts of the gun, you will have to use multimaterial/submaterials so that the final merged mesh has triangles that use different submaterials of the multimaterial that is assigned to the whole gun).
Berserker's exporter exports different objects without the need for them to be merged together. If you already have a setup like that, you will want to try that first.

I think I'm getting what you're saying. By root bone do you mean the origin? If I assign each piece of the gun to a bone, do I still need an origin bone? If so, do I assign the whole thing to the origin bone? Also, can I apply the skin modifier to everything, and insert the bones where I need them, or do I have to skin each piece along with its respective bone? I know I'm asking a lot of questions, and I appreciate your help. Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon.

Edit: Ok, here's what I've been doing. I've been using the group button to fuse pieces of the gun into the groups that I want. One for the barrel of the gun, another for the receiver, and then a third for the pump (the animated part). Then, I have inserted bones. I have not touched the envelopes. After that, I have gone one group at a time, using the skin modifier, and then assigning each group its own bone. Then I run beserkers exporter, and I have to select each piece of the gun, despite the groups. And I always get error messages. I also have not inserted an origin bone. I tried putting one in, naming it origin, and then adding it to the list of bones for each group, but nothing happened. Please explain to me, like a four year old, what I am doing wrong in those steps? Without visual aids telling me exactly what to do, I'm a lost puppy.

I am attempting to create a new weapon for Doom 3, and I have my model pretty much in 3DS Max. Some questions.

Do I group all of the pieces of the gun together, or will that keep it from being easily animated?

I tried exporting it as an MD5Mesh, but when I attempted to import it back in, nothing appeared in Max.
Edit: When I export, I get an error message about there being no skin modifier.

Can I apply a bump map just like I would a skin, only with a greyscale image?

Are there any tutorials for animating custom weapons?

Thanks.

Animating a weapon or anything else, if you don't have a skin modifier and you're apparently not sure what that is, you should take a look at the basic tutorial of "Animated Prop Meshes for Doom 3" on Brain Trepaning's page: http://www.trepaning.com/d3Vids/d3Vids.htm

I watched the video. And I now know how to apply a skin modifier and include the bones. However, do I apply the skin modifier to the whole gun, or just the parts I want to animate? Furthermore, how will this affect how I group/attach the pieces of the gun and export it as an md5mesh?

You apply the skin modifier to the whole gun. The parts that are not animated still have to be assigned to a bone, for example the root bone of your collection of bones, that never moves.
How you organize the pieces of the gun inside 3dsmax to get them to export depends on which of the two exporters you use. Mine wants to have everything in one mesh (if you have different textures on the parts of the gun, you will have to use multimaterial/submaterials so that the final merged mesh has triangles that use different submaterials of the multimaterial that is assigned to the whole gun).
Berserker's exporter exports different objects without the need for them to be merged together. If you already have a setup like that, you will want to try that first.

I think I'm getting what you're saying. By root bone do you mean the origin? If I assign each piece of the gun to a bone, do I still need an origin bone? If so, do I assign the whole thing to the origin bone? Also, can I apply the skin modifier to everything, and insert the bones where I need them, or do I have to skin each piece along with its respective bone? I know I'm asking a lot of questions, and I appreciate your help. Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon.

Edit: Ok, here's what I've been doing. I've been using the group button to fuse pieces of the gun into the groups that I want. One for the barrel of the gun, another for the receiver, and then a third for the pump (the animated part). Then, I have inserted bones. I have not touched the envelopes. After that, I have gone one group at a time, using the skin modifier, and then assigning each group its own bone. Then I run beserkers exporter, and I have to select each piece of the gun, despite the groups. And I always get error messages. I also have not inserted an origin bone. I tried putting one in, naming it origin, and then adding it to the list of bones for each group, but nothing happened. Please explain to me, like a four year old, what I am doing wrong in those steps? Without visual aids telling me exactly what to do, I'm a lost puppy.