Guns 'n Gear

adam · Sep 2015

This is a 3D modeling & texturing contest for the Steam Workshop of Tripwire's Killing Floor 2, an online first-person shooter.
This contest will last for just over 4 weeks. The contest starts on Wednesday, September 16th and the deadline is Sunday, October 18th ad 23:59 EST (GMT -4)
The Guns 'n Gear Contest winners will be announced up to 2 weeks following the contest deadline.
For the Guns 'n Gear Contest, participants will create fully modeled & textured, completely original item/item sets or weapon skin/weapon skin sets for Killing Floor 2. You will be creating wearable cosmetic items (read: "Hats!") ala Team Fortress 2 and Weapon Skins ala CS: GO. You are allowed to submit as many items as you can build in the time allotted.
There are 4 categories in total you can enter:
1. Single Item
2. Item Set
3. Single Weapon Skin
4. Weapon Skin Set
Your wearable item or weapon skin must be original for the contest, and cannot contain re-used artwork you may have previously created.
All submissions must be original and cannot contain elements from copyrighted works, reference to other IP’s, or use of any images or material you do not own. So please, be original & creative. Do not "copy & paste" your way to a submission!
You may team up with as many artists/concept artists as you like for this contest. If you do team up with others please pay special attention to the Submitting guideline noted below! Prizes will be given to the person who submitted it to the workshop, and it will be their responsibility to divide the prizes amongst contributors.
You must register on Steam and Polycount to enter this contest.
You must create and maintain a Work-In-Progress (WIP) thread at Polycount for your entry in our KF2 - GUNS 'N GEAR CONTEST FORUM If you make make multiple sets or items, you must have multiple threads for each. You will also submit each set or item to the Workshop separately.
You will need to own Killing Floor 2 to upload and submit your entry to the games Steam Workshop. The game is available for purchase here.
NOTE: If you do not own a copy of Killing Floor 2, you can still participate. You will need to first create and have an active WIP thread as described before. Then you will request a temporary key by sending an email with a link to your thread to polycount@tripwireinteractive.com. This key will be deactivated at the end of the contest.
All submissions to the Steam Workshop for this contest must be final. Use your WIP thread on Polycount to show your work-in-progress.

Every Single Item and Item set has a general set of requirements that will need to be met. These are standard for all Killing Floor 2 Workshop submissions. Below is a quick list of those requirements, but make sure you read the entire Killing Floor 2 Workshop page. It outlines the requirements in detail, as well as has individual specification pages for the item[s] you choose for this contest.

Each Single Item or Item Set should follow geometry and texture requirements for the item type. The allowable triangle counts and texture sizes vary per item. These are hard limits, so please check your work before submitting. These guidelines are available here.
Your final workshop submission only needs to contain your .upk. Do not cook/brew your .upk just save your .upk and upload it following this guide.
Each cosmetic item must have a diffuse, normal, specular and mask texture. Gloss is controlled by the alpha channel of the specular map.

COSMETIC ITEMS

Cosmetic items must be designed for one or more of the Killing Floor 2 playable characters. You can download source art for all of the playable characters on this page. If you want to support more then one player you must modify the mesh for each character and save it as a new mesh with the name of the character as a suffix. For example CHR_Gasmask_Ana, CHR_Gasmask_Alberts, CHR_Gasmask_Masterson, etc.

You can test your items on the playable characters in game by following this guide. If you're having trouble thinking of ideas for an item, read this short guide.

For this contest there are two (2) categories for item sets: Single Item and Item Set.

Single Item: This is a single cosmetic item that is submitted and judged on its own. It cannot be apart of an existing or newly created Item Set.

Item Set: A set of Item's (2 or more) that are of a cohesive design and/or theme. They are submitted together and will be judged and selected as a set.

WEAPON SKINS

Weapon skins can be made for any of the existing weapons in Killing Floor 2. The uv templates of each weapon are available for download here to help you paint specific, non tiled weapon skins. Weapon skins should be diffuse only and specular is controlled through several scalar parameters, except in the case of pattern based skins where a gloss map is supported. Changing the base normal, diffuse and specular maps of the weapon is not supported. Read this guide to get started.

Full documentation for the weapon skin material is located here as well as a quick tutorial on creating a pattern based weapon skin here.

For this contest there are two (2) categories for weapon skins: Single Weapon Skin and Weapon Skin Set

Single Weapon Skin: A single weapon skin entered on its on. Its design stands on its own and is not apart of any existing or created weapon skin set.

Weapon Skin Set: A set of Weapon Skins (2 or more) that are of a cohesive theme. They are submitted together and will be judged and selected as a group.

The process you will go through for submitting your entry to this contest is in 3 parts: Creating your submission, presenting it, and submitting it for final judging.

CREATING YOUR SUBMISSION

When you begin to work on your Item(s) or Skin(s) there are some things you will need to do.

If you haven't already, sign up for a Steam account. This will be required when it comes time to submit as you’ll be submitting to the Killing Floor 2 Workshop.

Sign up at Polycount. If you're in to 3D modeling or texturing for video games, you'll like it here at Polycount – promise! We have 200k+ members with virtually every video game studio’s talent represented in some way shape or form within our forum.

- For individual items: [KF2] – Item – Your Item's Name
  E.g. [KF2] - Item - the Bold Duster
  
  For Item Sets: [KF2] - Item Set - Your Set's Name
  E.g. [KF2] - Item Set - the Bold Duster's
  
  For weapon skins: [KF2] - Skin - Your Weapon Skin's Name
  E.g. [KF2] - Skin - Gum Wrapper
  
  For your Weapon Skin Set: [KF2] - Skin Set - Your Weapon Skin Set's Name
  E.g. [KF2] - Skin - Gum Wrapper's

All technical information regarding creating art content for Killing Floor 2 can be found on the Killing Floor 2 Workshop Wiki.
Update your WIP thread as much as you can! Showing your progress is very important. You cannot simply sign up today and then post your final submission 6 weeks from now. Weekly progress updates should be considered a minimum. Showing your progress will not only motivate you to finish, but it will allow the community to offer words of wisdom. That, and it will show the folks at Tripwire that you truly did make your entry for this contest and didn't have it tucked away on your hard-drive somewhere collecting dust waiting for the opportune time to cash in. Any and all decisions on this matter will be decided by Tripwire.

1 thread per item/skin. Any submissions being worked on by multiple artists must be posted to 1 WIP thread only. Do not create 1 thread per artist on a team.

PRESENTING YOUR SUBMISSION

Since these are assets for a game, what better way to present these than on a character in the game they are made for?

Your presentation materials as detailed below should be posted to the Final Submissions thread. This thread will only be used as a means of displaying all the FINISHED contest entries to the community. Your entries will be judged via your Workshop submission, detailed below.

Presentation Shot

This image must contain at least 2 angles of your item(s). Post effects from 3d software or 2d programs like Photoshop are NOT allowed in this image. The only adjustments allowed are: Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Sharpness, and Hue/Saturation.

Construction Shot

This image should contain your high poly model, along with a low poly wireframe.

Texture Sheet

It is mandatory to squeeze your diffuse, normal, and specular maps onto this image.

Concept/Reference Sheet

Any concept art, preliminary sketches, reference images, etc.

SUBMITTING YOUR ENTRY

Submission guidelines & instructions are straightforward and found on the Killing Floor 2 Workshop website.

All technical information regarding creating art content for Killing Floor 2 can be found on the Killing Floor 2 Workshop Wiki.

Download and install Killing Floor 2 (either by purchasing it or requesting a key as mentioned earlier).
Your submission through the Workshop will include the tag ‘Polycount KF2 Contest’. If this is absent your entry will not be considered for contest!
Your submission includes the link to your Polycount Forum thread for this contest. Please add this to the box where you supply a description of your item or skin.
Your submission signifies whether or not you are submitting a Single Item, Item Set, Single Weapon Skin, or Weapon Skin Set.
Your final workshop upload must include your final in-game art contest as outlined on the Workshop page. They can be uploaded as either .zip or .7z.

Via the Workshop Steam page, you elect the Steam accounts of the people you teamed up with for your entry and will apportion them the appropriate % of royalty they will receive from your winning entries earnings. This is not changeable afterwards. Make sure all involved knows what they are potentially receiving ahead of time.

Tripwire will decide the ‘Top 3’ winners in 4 categories: Single Item, Item Set, Single Weapon Skin, Weapon Skin Set. The winners will be chosen by both visual and technical quality, and how well they fit in to the Killing Floor 2 art direction. The more categories you enter, the better your chances of winning. But remember - you can only submit something for 1 category. For example, a Single Item cannot be apart of an Item Set.

Best Weapon Skin, Top 3 Winners

$1500 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop + Greentooth Trophy
$700 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop
$300 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop

Best Weapon Skin Set, Top 3 Winners

$1500 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop + Greentooth Trophy
$700 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop
$300 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop

Best Cosmetic Item, Top 3 Winners

$1500 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop + Greentooth Trophy
$700 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop
$300 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop

Best Cosmetic Item Set, Top 3 Winners

$1500 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop + Greentooth Trophy
$700 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop
$300 + added to Killing Floor 2 Steam Workshop