Replacing FP animation/model

Well, this is being more difficult than what i initially thought. I'm somewhat finished with my first project in terms of code and logic, so i started replacing the stock T3D art with my own. Unfortunately, it's being a nightmare! In the shape editor, everything is OK: the sequences are setup fine, the scale is correct ("correct" as in the same size of the original player), the bounds are set, the eyeNode/eye/camera bones are all set. It should be just a matter of replacing the art files in the datablocks. But that's not the case.

The first-person arms model is not appearing at all, or playing any sequence. As for the first-person weapon model, it's appearing, but in the wrong position and playing the old Ryder animations (that's why i'm assuming it's in a wrong position, because the model is being bound to another skeleton instead of mine). I don't see how it's possible to do that, however, because the model i have specified for my weapon in the datablock contains the same skeleton as my first-person arms one. They just differ on mesh data, the skeleton and animation are all the same.

Since it's not the first time i find hard-coded stuff in T3D, would anyone be interested in sharing the caveats, tips and tricks involved in replacing stock T3D art?

Ryder animations are in art/shapes/weapons/Ryder/PlayerAnims and are loaded through the prefix in the playerdatablock.

First person models are setup differently, they are mounted to the center of the coordinate system.

I've removed the prefix attributes from the Player/Ryder datablocks and i'm just pointing to the shape file. They are mounted to the eyeMount or eye bones, if present and if useEyeNode is true in the datablock: https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D/blob/2044b2691e1a29fa65d1bdd163f0d834995433ce/Engine/source/T3D/shapeImage.cpp#L1876

Talk about hard-coded stuff: https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D/blob/2044b2691e1a29fa65d1bdd163f0d834995433ce/Engine/source/T3D/player.cpp#L514

I bought the source art pack for the Soldier and exported the FP_SoldierArms_Rigged_Master_Max file to DAE, replacing my DAE with that one. That should work, since the only thing i changed in the original datablocks was the shape path. However, the same problems i'm having with my own model happened with the original one. So, definitely not missing nodes, scale or anything.

What might be the issue here? This really sucks. :(

I don't really know what you are trying to do, maybe screenshots would help.