TF2 Material Rendering: Hard Shadow Problem

Zombinian

Howdy folks,
I have been chipping away at my first TF2 workshop item, a beehive-style hairdo for the pyro. I started texturing recently and loaded the model and materials into the Test Map to preview my progress.BUT instead of rendering the hat in the same way as the rest of the game items/characters, it renders the hat with an almost cel-shaded look. I tried again and exported my model with smoothed normals, hoping it would calm the hard shadow, but no luck...

There must be a way to display the hat with the same material render as the rest of the game. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

(Hard Surface Normals)

heinous

i hope you are using the import tool.

in the rgb layer of your normal map texture, try using blank rgb value 128 128 255 instead of blank white or blank black, or just search for a blank normal map on google and copy that color.

then make sure in the import tool your lightwarp texture is pyro and not weapon.

Zombinian

Thank you heinous! Such an easy fix, I had my lightwarp set to weapon for some strange reason. Time to finish my hat!

Zombinian

Howdy folks, I ran into another snag today concerning a pyro hat I've been working on. So, I took my obj & tga files through the source sdk "itemtest" then I previewed the item via the in-game item import tool where I had to change my hats lightmap from "weapon" to "pyro" in order for it to render how I wanted and the hat looks just the way I want it to. The problem is that when I try it in the "item test" map, the hat does not retain the "pyro" lightmap, same thing with HLMV...any ideas as to how I can retain the edited lightmap info for my hat?

Thanks for any and all help!

circle of friends

Hmm it should just be Pyro by default. Have you tried totally rebuilding it by doing the import function inside TF2 and importing the SMD's and TGA's? Sounds to me like it's overwriting an old zip and not doing it right?

Baddcog

Why use the source sdk at all? You are just using another process that isn't what Valve wants you to use.

Just start fresh with a new name in the beta importer (every time to 'test' it make sa new folder - pyro, pyro_01, etc..)

Then you only have to trouble shoot the one program.

Zombinian

Baddcog wrote: »

Why use the source sdk at all? You are just using another process that isn't what Valve wants you to use.

Just start fresh with a new name in the beta importer (every time to 'test' it make sa new folder - pyro, pyro_01, etc..)

Then you only have to trouble shoot the one program.

Thanks for your responses!
I took your advice and skipped the source sdk "itemtest" process of converting my files and instead took my hat (.fbx and .tga) files into the tf2 "item test" importer. Trouble is it would not preview my item because it failed to compile. I also tried placing my hat files in (common/team fortress 2/tf/custom) with the same results.

I have watched videos and read guides on tf2 item creation but I can't seem to figure out the problem. Any help is appreciated!



My hat files located in (Steam/steamapps/sourcemods...)



The item test set-up



The error message that popped-up after hitting "preview. (This message never popped up when I compiled my files via the source sdk "itemtest")

heinous

do you have a bip_head bone in both your model files?

circle of friends

Yeah it's failing on bip_head. How have you rigged the model? Are you using a skeleton from one of the tf2 model decompiles? You should be. Either that or you've probably forgotten to skin the hat to the head bone.

Baddcog

yup

Baddcog

yeah, the old import didn't require a bip_hea attachment, it just had to be placed in the correct spot on the head. Now you have to skin.

Zombinian

Thanks for the help! I went back and skinned the hat, problem solved. I just finished the hat and uploaded it to the workshop.

MrsNomingtons

Woops. Wrong thread. Sorry!