TF2 - Polypack - ShadowBrain

ShadowBrain

Alright so i was thinking of doing the sniper, my ideas for now are:
THEME: Jungle

Primary:
-A compound bow.
Design1:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/CompoundBow.png
Design2:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Compoundbow-1.jpg
Design3 (final):

Progress1:

Progress2:


Melee:
-A machete (currently at 592 tris)
Progress1:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress.jpg
Progress2:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress2.jpg
Progress3:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress3.jpg
Progress4:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress4.jpg
Progress5:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress5.jpg
Progress6:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg214/Brain112/Macheteprogress6.jpg
Possibly final:


Misc:
-Tiger head
Design:
Being worked on.


The drawings shown above are only crude concept drawings, and will be improved where needed.

ShadowBrain

Any feedback at all?

EvilShadow777

What theme are you going for? That's a bit important. Plus you've only got 2 items here, you need at least 1 more. If you can pop a theme here you could put a hat in also.

nrek

Seems like very few people are doing Bow mods, so if you have some ideas for a cool one you should definitely do it. At the moment though it just likes like a stripped down childres bow. Since the goal of the contest is to stick with the period of TF2 doing a completely modern compound bow is out of the question, but im sure you can come up with some creative ways of adding some more substance to this design while still keeping with the TF2 time period. Maybe have the arms made of thick-ish strips of metal that are attached to the frame with big bolts. Or maybe play with the idea of springs. They could connect near the tip of the arms and then run down the length of the arm to the main frame, and then the arms could be hinged on there and the spring is what provides the tension. As for the knife, it feels more like a spy weapon as opposed to a sniper weapon. Keep going.

SixTwoSixFour

In regards to the knife, does it seem a little... small... to you? The only guy who can really get away with small melee weapons is the spy, and that's because he inserts the blade directly into your spinal cord.

Also, what exactly is your theme? The Polypacks are supposed to have a consistent theme throughout, and I can't really tell what yours is.

A potential theme is the outdoorsman. Really, for the last couple centuries, bows have been used pretty much only by hunters. You could do your compound bow (I like that idea, by the way), a secondary (not sure what exactly here, sorry), and for melee, I have two ideas. If you want to make it just a deadly weapon, you could do a machete- they're pretty handy tools for navigating jungles and forests, as well as devastating weapons. If you wanted to have a weapon that didn't deal very much damage, but could maybe perform another useful function, you could do something like a leatherman multitool. I warn you, that might be a real pain to model, though.

Just some thoughts. Good luck, dude!

ShadowBrain

Thanks for the feedback guys, I guess the knife does seem a bit too spyish.
I'll work on the bow's design a bit more and I guess I can change the knife into a machete.
Edit: Oh right, the theme, I think I'll go for a jungle-type thing, but I'll see if that changes along the way.

Ikimono

Get a theme. That is all.

ShadowBrain

Alright guys, new design up top, and a possible melee idea.
Feedback please.

Ikimono

ShadowBrain wrote: »

Alright guys, new design up top, and a possible melee idea.
Feedback please.

Well it's a machete...that's about it.

ShadowBrain

It's actually more of a knife rather than a machete, but it definitively has the size to be a machete.

ShadowBrain

Alright, got a WIP render on the knife/whatever:

Not sure what to do about the handle yet, but I'll see what I can come up with.

ShadowBrain

Update update

Ikimono

Well it's a 1 handed dagger.

You're going to need to make new animations for it more than likely.
Doing two handed downward whacks and sweeping swings with a dagger does not make sense.

ShadowBrain

Ikimono wrote: »

Well it's a 1 handed dagger.

You're going to need to make new animations for it more than likely.
Doing two handed downward whacks and sweeping swings with a dagger does not make sense.

Actually, as far as I know, the sniper uses one hand to swipe with his machete...
EDIT: Well okay, theres one animation with two hands

Khthon

I'd go for an exaggerated TF2 styled machete shape if you're going for 'Jungle theme'. Here's some refs-

Rogue Trooper

I love that top machete.

ShadowBrain

Khthon wrote: »

I'd go for an exaggerated TF2 styled machete shape if you're going for 'Jungle theme'. Here's some refs-

That one seems cool, I'll see what I can do with that today.

Ritz

Why is a Tie-Fighter attacking your 2nd bow concept?

DDSN

I'd like a more camouflaged version of the compound bow, maybe with some taped on leafs on it. The stats would make sense if it:
+Fires faster and farther.
+No slowdown when pulling it.
+Shake effect takes longer/is gone.
-Low damage.
-Arrow cannot be lit.
-Arrow gets pulled back if you start to shake/get damaged.

ShadowBrain

DDSN wrote: »

I'd like a more camouflaged version of the compound bow, maybe with some taped on leafs on it. The stats would make sense if it:
+Fires faster and farther.
+No slowdown when pulling it.
+Shake effect takes longer/is gone.
-Low damage.
-Arrow cannot be lit.
-Arrow gets pulled back if you start to shake/get damaged.

Yeah, that's how I got to that type of bow and figured it would be a good upgrade from the regular bow.

DDSN

Oh and one more thing.

+Minicrits on headshot.
OR
-No headshot bonus.

ShadowBrain

Alright, progress on the machete:

Khthon

Gotta enlongate the metal of the machete so it 'fits' the animations. Basic shape is great, however!

DDSN

ShadowBrain wrote: »

Yeah, that's how I got to that type of bow and figured it would be a good upgrade from the regular bow.

+Minicrit on headshot.
OR
-No headshot bonus.

ShadowBrain

DDSN wrote: »

+Minicrit on headshot.
OR
-No headshot bonus.

I'm not gonna think of any gameplay mechanics, I'm just going to model the weapon.

ShadowBrain

Progress, how's this guys?:

Edit: Just realised I didn't add in the line embedded into the blade on the ref picture, should I bumpmap that in?

ShadowBrain

Is it bad that the model above me only has 494 tris?

ShadowBrain

Alright, I reworked the model a bit, and the original machete has just over 800 Tris, so mine has just over half of that.
I also put the original machete next to it to compare them:

Pogo

The handle is looking a little blocky, try and smooth it out a little

Khthon

Yeah, smooth handle. How are you at texturing?

ShadowBrain

This any better?:

This update upped it to 592 tris
Edit: Oh and texturing: not very good.
I can UV-unwrap fine though.

ShadowBrain

Does anyone know the modelpath for the snipers default hat?

ShadowBrain

Hat concept1:

It's basicly a cut off monkey arm.

Elbagast

The Sniper's hat is a bodygroup of the character model, so you'll either have to decompile it and take it from what comes out or take the model supplied in the SDK and delete everything bar the hat.

ShadowBrain

Elbagast wrote: »

The Sniper's hat is a bodygroup of the character model, so you'll either have to decompile it and take it from what comes out or take the model supplied in the SDK and delete everything bar the hat.

Oh, I guess I'll just use bills hat to base my modeling off of, since I have that one.

ShadowBrain

Alright the monkey arm hat is a nono, as I can't make it without going way over the max tri count.
Thinking of making a tiger hat or something.

ShadowBrain

Allright, WIP textures:

Anyone got anything I could improve on?

Pogo

Base colours look fine, check this thread to improve on the style a bit.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73559

ShadowBrain

How's this?:

Khthon

Looks better, could use some more color variation with broad painterly strokes TF2 style.

ShadowBrain

I'm thinking of revising my compound bow idea, as I don't feel making 2 more visible strings works right with the bow, and would kind of obstruct the snipers view.
I am thinking of making one thats made from things found in the jungle though.

Rogue Trooper

A bow made out of bamboo. I like the idea.

ShadowBrain

Alright, sorry about the delay, heres the new concept:

I'm not sure whether the things at the left of the arrow should be feathers or leafs, but I know for sure I'll jiggle them a bit.

Khthon

just some refs for you

ShadowBrain

Thanks, on a side note, I broke my head over getting the machete in-game, only the world model for now, view model will be worked on asap when I feel like it.
Pics:


Could anyone tell me how to make it not shiny and shit like it is right now?
It's like freaking plastic.
Vid for interested people: http://www.xfire.com/video/2cadc9/

Pogo

Looks like a problem with the specular map. check your alpha channel

ShadowBrain

Pogo wrote: »

Looks like a problem with the specular map. check your alpha channel

The whatnow?
Do you mean the only texture I put on it?
Ill check its alphachannel then I guess.

Pogo

ShadowBrain wrote: »

The whatnow?
Do you mean the only texture I put on it?
Ill check its alphachannel then I guess.

"Specular maps in a Source game work just like they do in most 3D software packages. It's just a grayscale image with white representing reflectiveness and black representing matte."

ShadowBrain

I removed the entire alpha channel and it's still shiny
So should I make the alpha channel black?

ShadowBrain

That seems to have made it a bit less reflective, looks alot better now.

ShadowBrain

Guys, do you think the machete would look better if I turned it around with the saw-y type part pointing away from the sniper?