Tuesday, January 24, 2012

News: Steam Workshop - Tweaks and Fixes

It's been a while since I've submitted any 'new' TF2 items, however I have been working on a few tweaks and fixes for my older items...



First up is the Pocket Medic. Sometime after the Pocket Medic became an official item in Team Fortress 2, someone at Valve added a shadow pass to the texture. However, since the item included a pocket meant to match Heavy's vest, the shadow pass darkened the pocket to the point where it no longer matched the vest. I've updated the texture file to take away the shadows on the pocket, while leaving them intact on the rest of the model. You can view the Workshop entry here.



Next, the Barbershop Boater, an all-class hat I had submitted a while back, has been revamped to remove the additional bow-tie I added to the hat (due to the inclusion of the 'Dr. Whoa' item in the game, the bowtie was now redundant). I also streamlined the hat with an LOD model (that's Level of Detail, a simplified version of the hat used to save memory when the item is seen from far away), and solved a few texture issues that sprang up from said LOD model. Additionally, with the recent upgrade of the Workshop that added the ability to place multiple pictures and videos on each Workshop entry, I took the liberty of adding more photos of the Boater in action, which can all be found here.


Finally, I took an older hat of mine, the Comrade's Cranial Protector (or CCP), dusted it off, updated the texture to more closely match TF2's style, and re-submitted it to the Workshop. The hat, a Chinese army cap, was part of my entry into TF2's Polycount Contest, wherein contestants created themed packs of TF2 items for one of the 9 classes. I chose to make a pack for the Heavy, with the theme being 'Around the World With Communism'. The other items included a Cuban shotgun, and a punching weapon that symbolized the Hammer and Sickle. Anyhow, check out the CCP here.