Artisanix

What you described there is a correct behavior. The point is that each vertex must have always total weight value that equals 1.0. If you set it's weight higher than 0 and lower than 1 for one bone, you also need to distibute remaining weight to other bones. Here are some scenarios: weight 0 - no attached to any bone 1.0 - attached fully to one bone 0.5 / 0.5 - equally atached to two bones 0.3 / 0.7 - attached to two bones 0.2 / 0.5 / 0.3 - attached to three bones etc. sum of particular weights for one vertex is always equal to 1.0, so if you paint it green for one bone, and not for others, then Blender thinks that vertex is influenced by only one bone but have incorrect total weight value, and sets it to 100% for that bone which is 1.0

Switch to Edit Poly/Mesh modifier, and set selection to Element, then click one of the bamboo ends, and the outer geometry should be selected - move it slightly along one of the axis (eg. Y) to reveal what's inside - select all that and delete, then move the object back to its place.

This is caused by the additional geometry you have inside of your bamboo stick. Bend modifier deforms outside surface of the stick in a different way than inside faces, and they overlap. What you see there aren't black holes but back surface of the shape you have inside of your stick. Your bamboo has some thickness, and you created "caps" on both ends, but you left all unecessary geometry inside, which is really a bad way to do things as far as 3d modelling is concerned :) You should definitely delete everything what's inside of your model and won't be ever visible...

Adding bones and setting weights is described in SKINNING THE BOW section of the tutorial :]

Well, good luck then. And have fun, the first step is usually the hardest ;]

I don't know exactly what you did there, but I downloaded and extracted the archive you posted. And the last file there - 3woodenbowNIFSKOPE.nif, which I presume is "the final" file has that BSLightingShaderProperty branch broken in exactly the same way as exported does :)

You replaced those two branches but you left BSLightingShaderProperty intact from the exported nif, and that's broken. The point is that MAX exports NiTriShape, NiTriShapeData, and NiSkinInstance branches correctly. Though it does export BSLightingShaderProperty branch INCORRECTLY. So your problems are because you left this branch alone. What you should do is to DELETE this BSLightingShaderProperty branch from your exported bow and paste and link such branch from any original nif then eventually change texture paths there. Just do it exactly as it is described in the tutorial: Well, it worked for me ;] But thanks for pointing that out.

So, there you have an answer to your problems.Probably I should mention this in that tutorial, but I didn't carry out any proper test by then. The version 3.7.3 of the exporter is quite buggy, and it breaks many things, so you can't have working bows in game from this one. You should definitely revert back to version I use(d) which is 3.7.1. You do not need to reinvent the wheel for the second time, so it's enough to just import one of the original bows into the scene with complete skeleton instead of making it from scratch. As above, making your own bones for bows is a waste of time, import is enough. Bows actually, have more similarities with armour than with other malee weapons. Well, I updated description of the tutorial's page some time ago, so the export picture in that tutotial is not the most correct, as I had one option switched off when I exported my bows. Here's the quote: "At picture with 3DS MAX export settings in this tutorial there's one option checked when it should not be - Generate Partition Strips in Skin Modifier section - it's better to turn it OFF." I can only hope that with these proposed changes you are one step closer to create a working bow ;] I could only add that you may want to reshape the look of your bow, as it has the string far off the place in which the original string is placed, and this may cause quite noticeable inaccuracies in animations.

Do you have problems with any of these steps or just one? Can you import original bow, and see its shape and bones in max? Did you assign weights for all vertices of your bow properly? Do you use proper version of the exporter and proper export settings? Can you post a screenshot of the latter? You need to be more accurate with describing your problems, then we could find the solution quicker... What version of NIF plugin?

it's on nexus

the question is what game you want to modify? as the plugin you posted the link to has no any support for skyrim's files...