Armor model editing (kotormax + mdlops) - severe distortions ingame

[Koru 24]

I'm running into some wild issues with custom meshes exported out of 3ds max 2019 with Kotormax (set to geometry only) and converted with MDLOps. Totally at my wit's end on how to deal with it, cross-referenced an unedited vanilla model that exports back in without issue aside from a misplaced thumb. I've followed the scene structure, naming conventions, trimesh settings and skinning with as much precision as I can double and triple check, and yet:

The arms get mega distorted and the right foot disappears into the ground. I've exhausted my googling skills and definitely need help figuring this out. Curiously, the torso and legs are totally fine, the distortion starts immediately where the arm mesh cut-off happens, and on the right foot, for some reason.

What I've done:
Modeling and asset management done in 3ds Max 2019.
Worked from the vanilla model converted to Ascii via MDLOps and imported via Kotormax set to Geo only.
Skin wrapped modified mesh to vanilla mesh, bone limit per vertex set to 4, no zero vertices.
Trimesh settings reproduced 1:1 from vanilla.
Naming conventions checked - torso, armL and armR. Model is split up accordingly. Tried different configurations of model splitting (including splitting up boots), naming and parenting with no success, just differently messed up models.
Split boots parented to the Shin bone weirdly stopped the foot from wigging out, but had a gap between the boot and the body.
Tried bringing my edited model into the Supermodel source and skinning it there and exporting from that directly. Same issue.
Supermodel is correct, cross-referenced. Tried exporting with other supermodel settings and they also come out distorted, but slightly differently.
Meshes are set to Editable Mesh.
Xform is applied before skinning. Also tried Kotormax's shortcut.
Exported as Geometry only. Tried Geo + Anim with no difference.
Converted back to MDL/MDX via MDLOps.

I also tried re-converting this back to Ascii, loaded it back in to check for bone distortion in the file itself, and it looks perfectly fine.

Interestingly, pivoting the meshes seems to drastically change the bug-out behavior, including a fascinating case where the outfit and surrounding characters' heads turned invisible, with translucent flickering.

So, I'm left with a few potential conclusions:
-Kotormax might have an issue exporting body models out of 3dsMax 2019. I couldn't find if it's been tested or not. Orientation numbers on the skinned meshes in the Ascii data looked different from vanilla, but I really couldn't tell for sure. Raw MDLOps conversion has an orientation value of -0 -0  1  3.14159, while Kotormax export has 0.0 0.0 1.0 -1.73776e-07. This is the only real difference I was able to glean.
-Maybe messing with vertex count and cutting into geometry on existing models upsets the game for some reason, even though the MDX is there and supermodel assigned.
-Maybe MDLOps busts the skeleton in the conversion process somehow?
-Or am I just totally missing something stupidly obvious here?

If any of the folks working on these tools want to try and troubleshoot, I'll gladly send my files to you, just say the word.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Koru

[Koru 24]

Update: Looks like converting with MDLedit instead of MDLops and checking that all my meshes are under 16 bones each seems to have worked.
In case anyone else comes around with the same issue one day, this is what solved it for me.

 

[DarthParametric 3,767]

The bone limit per-mesh is actually 17, but I think MDLEdit still gives a warning at past 16 (fixing it was on bead-v's to-do list). But yeah, that's the reason KOTOR splits out hands/arms from the torso. It also means you can't put use all the face bones on a head unless you cut it in half.