Ive gone through a few tutorials on youtube that go over the process of importing custom meshes into UE4’s shooter example, but they all use Blender which seems to give a different outcome than when I use 3ds Max.
How would I go about adding a new weapon to the shooter example, using 3ds max as my modeling program?There should be no difference when using 3ds Max. Just make sure that your size settings are appropriate (UE4 uses centimeters as a default) and save your model as an .fbx file. If this doesn’t help, maybe you can give a more detailed explanation of how your outcome is different? Are you having trouble importing the mesh, or is something wrong with the model in the engine?
Basically what happens is if I export the rifle mesh as an fbx, and reimport it unedited, its position is moved back to the point where you can hardly see the gun.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4112921/Exampleproblem.JPG
Which blueprint, WeapGun? Because I haven’t touched that except for setting the new mesh for first person, and all I did was export the rifle model as an .fbx and import, without any editing and it still appears different.
Are you sure you positioned the gun correctly in the blueprint? This looks like the Mesh Component (Your custom Gun) is at the wrong position (I’m guessing about 30 units too far back from the picture you’ve shared). Try moving the component away from the camera in the blueprint.
Yea, WeapGun. If you go into the components tab, you can move the component around.
Ah, only problem is, is that the first person gun is the root component and I cant move it or anything.
You can add a new static or skeletal mesh then leave blank the root component 
it will do the trick. Then move your new mesh and resize it whatever you want. If you want the default muzzle flash to work on it you can do it in blueprint or modify your weapon to correspond to skeletal mesh.