TF2 - Polypack - Frump
polycounter lvl 12
Finished!
Theme is practical espionage gear. The kind of thing a real spy might have on him. A concealed, small form factor pistol, a passport, and a gentlemanly watch.
Here's some other eye candy. A knife replacement I made for the Spy before this contest existed. It's not eligible, but posts without images are boring!
Double Agent animations by Sparkwire!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukbfJPF9-ZI[/ame]
Replies
Your items in the TF2 Contribute thread have been sweet. Can't wait to see what you come up with.
Ha, I had the exact same reaction to your thread! Love the hats and stuff that you've made.
Noors: Thanks man. Glad to hear good things from people who got into the game.:)
Okay, I was not going to reveal my ideas in case of idea theft, but I realize that's not really the point, you still need the execution! Tell me which ideas you like best. Should I go with Spy or Pyro? WAR!
Here's some ideas I don't have concepts of or scanned concepts of:
Briefcase Sapper - Sits on the ground beside the sentry, "incognito". Doesn't alert the engie, but is very visually obvious. Slower Sap speed to account for being harder to notice. Better for situations where the engy is away from his gun.
Double barreled Flamethrower - Wider spray, less damage, shorter burn (liquor fueled, killing a demoman replenishes more ammo than other classes)
Pyro Sunglasses - Fires can get pretty bright, shield your eyes with these styling shades.
Flare Gun with a magazine - Semi-auto, shorter burn, less damage. Gotta jazz the design on this one up. Not much of a concept for it down there.
Potato Gun Molotov Launcher - Flare Gun/Shotgun replacement. Slower Reload, shorter range, more damage/ longer burn. Not only fire, but glass shards hit the enemy scoundrel! PVC tube with attached air compressor.
Passport - Replacement for the Disguise Kit. Every good spy needs at least 9 aliases and 9 passports to go with them. Ideally could display image of class and random player name on the page. This is an old model and if I choose to do it I will start from scratch. Stamped at all different terminals, Dustbowl, Gravelpit, Goldrush, etc. I think I saw that on a TF2 themed post card.
It's all in good fun.:)
As a huge fan of the game I find it hard not to think about how the items will affect my player experience when included in the game. It's just something interesting, not going to affect my actual design decisions. Gameplay thoughts are just secondary; something for people to read about. When you create something it's hard not to think it through.
So far, I've come up with all of the little gameplay tidbits after solidifying the weapon concept in my head.
I modeled it flat, so I added a bone for each edge loop to have total control over the shape. If I were to make that again I would do it differently. I think I tried with fewer bones and couldn't get what I wanted. The second chain is for the pages to have their own bones so they can bounce around.
The overall theme or style will be elegant shiny weapons. Ambassador style, like the knife I made previously. A mix of wood, polished metal and engraving. Sleek and Curvy where applicable.
Didn't get much done today in the way of actual modeling. I did though, make a choice on which class to do. I'm sticking with the Spy since I still love the passport idea.
Informer's Icepick: Knife replacement. S resourceful spy uses whatever is in his environment to get the job done.
Provocateur's Pocketwatch: Invisiwatch replacement. Probably based on a real watch. Making use of a normal map for fancy engraving. Inlaid wood stuff.
Double Agent: Revolver replacement. No spy leaves home without a concealed backup pistol in the case that he loses his main. Probably based on a Walther PPK but custom fit to the style of TF2 and my theme. Maybe silenced?
Burn Notice: Revolver Replacement. Based on the m1911 handgun but tailored to suit the style of the game and my theme. Same idea as the Double Agent, just a different design.
Counter Intelligence Credentials: I have an image for this one! The aforementioned passport disguise kit. The model is basically done, I just have to figure out how the rig will work and UV it. Planning to have the official french passport seal on the cover. Will do a paintover showing the page layout that will become the texture.
Here's tonight's progress. Made a sort of concept template for the watch and then I modeled it. Still have to work on the concept to finalize colours, materials, interface and the design on the front.
I am lucky I have a pocket watch. It made it a lot easier to model; I just took a couple pictures and was on may way. I didn't have to spend hours finding good refs.
Tell me what you think!
Okay, I suck at posting in my own thread. I need to add some interest in here. I'll keep posting more frequently as I make progress.
I'm doing things in a bit of a strange order, getting all of the base models out. Soon I will probably be switching to finishing one at a time and further refining the designs. I just want to have a good jumping off point first.
Here's some progress I made last night. I got a start on the pistol. I'm basing it on the Derringer style of concealed pistols. I will be making it top loading instead of the way most of these guns are.
Anyway, here's an update on the where the gun's been going. Nearly done the model on this one, I think, just a few more details and tweaks. The hinge near the trigger and the black piece on top are the modifications to the gun's design which make it top load and combat effective. Not final colours or anything, just there for preview and to help differentiate shapes while modeling.
In that it's a pocket watch and it's round, yes.:)
Side by side there are a lot of differences but it should be apparent without that. I just got a base model down. I'm going to expand on the design and make it more interesting and unique, hopefully. If not I can always drop it and come up with something else. I want to make a hat...
What if you made it so the spy had like 3 watches on his arm, "The Timely-Mann's Triple Ticker"
I like this idea. Maybe you have longer cloak, but with each depleted watch you are more and more visible...
Also, Frump, so far I really like the passport and gun idea, both look really nice. Especially the passport is one of the few excellent ideas out there for a disguise kit replacement.
I like that idea, someone should do it. However, for my purposes it doesn't fit my theme, which is practical spy equipment. A passport, concealed backup pistol and a pocket watch.
Yup, I never doubted one had been. Short of making a completely original gun design, I bet every common model has been done before. This gun fits into my theme perfectly and I like how it looks. It's all about the execution, gotta set mine apart.
Is there a way to view the other submitted community items? The original blog post said they were going to make a community site for it but I haven't seen one yet.
Have one that has "French time," one that has some sort of "James Bond" elements to it, and one that is the cloaking countdown meter?
*shrug* More than likely no. I would also like to see what has been submitted so I don't accidentally waste time or something like that... : \
Yeah, posting at bad times is a recurring problem... I get home from work at 6pm and can't get any work done before that. Then I work until midnight or so and post it late. Late for pacific, even later for eastern time. Not much I can do insetad. Maybe post half updates or progress every few hours?
That would be fine. I'm always up at 12:00 Pacific time though and I've still never caught your updates!
oobersli: Thanks, let's hope I can keep it up.
konr: Thanks, that's the first time I've received a personal complement online, I think.:)
If you spread out and view other parts of the forums you will see there are other much more skilled and more knowledgeable people than me.
Ikimono: I'm rethinking the design of the watch and working on a sapper design so I will keep the multiple watches idea in mind.
Gilboron: Yeah I have had this passport idea for a few months but never really got around to it now. Tell me what you think of this mockup.
Okay so here's a mockup for the inside of the Passport. It turns out taking something as boring as a passport and making it interesting is hard! I'm not sure what to do with the right hand page. Should I put a silhouette of the spy or an image of another class? An image of a spy? In my ideal world it would show what you are currently disguised as or a random class. The name on the passport would be a player name.
Does anyone know if source can do morph target/blend shape type animations? Because I have the book modeled in an open and closed position and I can't really think of any other way to change between the states. It doesn't close exactly with rotation so it would be hard to weight it to a bone. I guess I'll play around with it. I know I want jiggle bones on the pages.
http://www.tbotech.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/book-made-into-safe.jpg
I got some cool ideas for a new sapper so I decided to get some silhouettes down. It's up in the air whether I will make any of these, but I'm really liking some of them.
1, 2, 3 looks like they could be in a game like Counter Strike.
X, 4 and 5 are too weird...
6 and 7 looks too plain and too big.
I'm worry if these are harch words
I think you should focus more on making them look like ordinary objects.
Spy's items are usually things that don't look obviously high tech, rather they are high tech items that look like ordinary objects.
Spy's sapper looks like an old Radio, Spy's cloaking devices look like watches, and Spy's disguise case looks like a cigarette case.
I like the stuff so far. However, I don't think the pocket watch is a good idea. It's too reminiscent of the Dead Ringer, and it has different functionality to the other watches.
Reminds me of the important briefcase handcuffed to a guy trope!
Remember: the dates in the passport should be in the 50s to keep it in line with the TF2 timeline.
You could make some more graphically interesting stamps, based on geometry/landmarks from the maps. Like a rock formation mesa for badlands, etc.
Passport stamp shapes ref-
BRAINSTORM!
Found some cool refs for different types of stamps!! You could do stamps for Russia/Boston/Germany/Australia/Scotland/USA/France to go with the "Spy casing out the other classes' homes" thing. :cool:
Soviet passport stamp ref-
Austrlia stamp -
Boston landmark stamp-
East German stamp-
French landmark stamp-
USA landmark stamp-
Scotland and other landmarks for inspiration -
And you could detail it by putting some nice engraving/etching print on the paper (like it is on real passports/currency to prevent counterfeiting).
Some refs -
Keep us updated! :cool:
The game takes place in 1968. Change those dates please.
vcool: Yeah, it is similar but it's not nearly done yet either. I'm not sure if I will keep it, which is why I made some sapper silhouettes. By the day the watch is getting less and less appealing. About it looking the same though, the Invis Watch and the Cloak and Dagger both look very similar and have similar function. If this got in it would be the same. It would look the same and do similar to the dead ringer, I imagine.
Khthon: Thanks for all the refs man! Gives me some good ideas for more interesting stamps. The 2 fort bridge, the payload, Gravel pit cap C, control point shaped stamp. I will probably put the watermarkings on the page in the final texture I was just not going to put that much intricate detail into this paintover.
I like the suitcase sappers a lot, but the problem is they are too custom. At least the way I have them in my head.
Betty Hime: Thanks. I'm also leaning more towards the explosive sappers. Would be intersting to model and as an in game item. Those were the original ideas I had and I just kept going to make the rest.
DDSN: Thanks for the heads up. I didn't know if there was a canonical timeline for the series or not. I assumed it took place in some sort of time limbo that just had the 50's style. So I was using real world dates since the game release on the stamps. When I do the actual texture I'll make sure to have that detail accurate.
EVIL: Thanks, always good to hear.:)
It's just that, suitcases are pretty large while the sapper is lunchbox size.
n.
You can make anything as long as it looks like something that would be thought up in the current time frame.
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I show this video because I had originally intended for that death ray to be a static prop for a TF2 map
Be right back, making a sentry pack.
Sorry I haven't had an update guys. I took Monday off and ended up busy yesterday. Gonna try and get some hours in on it tonight. Here's a theme image doodle I did to make the theme clearer or something. Not final colours or concepts!
First post updated with more theme info.
Worked some more on ideas for the Passport innards. The scale on the picture is weird because I didn't want it covering up too much of the avatar thing. I could change the scale of the picture and move the id photo around. I made those things in 3d already so it's easy to scale and move them around. The hidden lockpick doesn't make sense because they stamped the page right beside it...
Other work was just UVs and not much to show.
I haven't died or given up or anything, I just had a slow week as far as this stuff went. I don't know if I will continue to be as strained for time, but I'm hoping not!
Gonna start working on these more linearly and finish one then move on to another. The plan is still to do all 4 items and let Valve choose which ones they want to include, if any.
Gun is UV'd! Tomorrow I can begin on the texture.
Thanks for looking:)