animations reloading and recoil?

3dsmax? Maya? Blender? Even unity if you've boned your model - then again using a dedicate 3d suite is better as you have rigging options already set to make joints look the most natural...

I get confused with making the weapons and the hands separately from the plays model ... yet on an online game, they display as one - Maybe because the Data received from the players computer is used differently on another player machine - there different fire animation and a such - yet Halo uses one complete mesh and animates that...confusing...