Fix missing weapon animations & T-pose

The weapon model loads fine, but the ped stands in a T-pose holding it, or the weapon hovers near the hand with no grip. The model is working — the animation set for it isn't being applied. Here's the checklist, most common cause first.

1. Load order

This is it about 80% of the time. The weapon pack must ensure before any resource that touches weapon data or ped rendering — inventory scripts, weapon-on-back scripts, some HUDs.

# correct
ensure sl_weapons_tempest
ensure ox_inventory
ensure weapon_on_back

# wrong — inventory grabbed the weapon list before the pack existed
ensure ox_inventory
ensure sl_weapons_tempest

Move our resource up, restart the server fully (not just the resource), and re-test.

2. The animations meta isn't registered

Check the pack's fxmanifest.lua still has its data-file lines. If you edited the manifest, you may have dropped one:

data_file 'WEAPONINFO_FILE' 'data/weapons.meta'
data_file 'WEAPON_ANIMATIONS_FILE' 'data/weaponanimations.meta'
data_file 'WEAPON_COMPONENTS_FILE' 'data/weaponcomponents.meta'

WEAPON_ANIMATIONS_FILE is the one that governs grip and attack clips. No line, no animations.

3. Two packs fighting over the same clip set

If another weapon pack defines a weaponanimations.meta with the same <Item> fallback block, whichever loads last wins — and it might not have your weapon in it. Symptoms: one pack's weapons animate, another's don't, and swapping load order swaps which is broken.

Fix: merge the animation entries into a single meta, or namespace them. Our packs use a unique clip-set name per weapon to avoid this — if you hit it, it's usually a third-party pack that reused Weapon as its group name.

4. Client didn't get the update

Cache. Have the affected player clear their client cache, or bump the resource version so the client re-downloads:

# in fxmanifest.lua
version '1.0.1'

5. It's a melee weapon on a base-game hash

If a melee weapon reuses a vanilla hash (e.g. WEAPON_KNIFE) instead of a new one, GTA applies the vanilla animation and ignores yours. Check the README — every Story Loadout melee weapon ships on its own hash for exactly this reason.

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Still T-posing?

Grab these and drop them in #loadout-support:

• Your full server.cfg resource block (order matters, so all of it).
• The pack's fxmanifest.lua.
• A list of any other weapon / clothing / ped-anim resources you run.