ok, for the backward hands, its probably becuase you mirrored one of the hands...so if you don't rest x form, then it will be flipped. why? becuase max is in its on little world, and handles certain operations, like mirror object, very differently. when you mirror an object in max, it makes a fake mirrored object, it's not really the original flipped, its really the original, but max is rendering it differently. dont ask my why discreet didn't actually do this the proper way...i don't know.
now, as for exporting bones and animations with max useing panda. the only way you can do it is by useing the native bones objects, and useing link and mesh select. first you make your bones to match your hand..have to do this seperate for each properly x formated hand...then you add the mesh select modifier to the hand, then select one section verts and then link them to a bone(theres a modifier for linking, i can't remember the name, doing this from memory)...anyway, you have to do this to each section a bone is in. then you can animate.
now you will be able to export everything using panda. I'm sorry to say, thats the only way you can do it using panda. max is really a crappy program for exporting into direct x format. lot of company's make their own export plugins, or they use different software for animating. especially when it comes to rigging, and using motion capture, and even skinning, max is crap, lol.
hope this helps
MOONDOG
current projects: Mystic Dream // red // battle room
