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TF2 - Polypack - ABCZZT

I came up with something when I saw this event, so I registered.
It's for the Scout. I thought about how fast he is and how much
he runs, and the word "marathon" popped into my head. Then I
thought about him wearing a laurel wreath, and I decided that
my theme would be the Olympics.

If you ask me, all the classes except the Scout and Demoman
have hats that relate to their classes, while most have hats
that relate to their backgrounds or personalities. The Demo
has hats that say "I'm Scottish" and one that says "I'm African,"
but none that say "I blow stuff up." The Scout's hats say
either "I like baseball" or "I'm from Boston," not "I am fast."
If you call these problems, this should solve one of them.

Back to the point, these are my ideas:
• An olive (not laurel) wreath for a hat, "kotinos" is the Greek word.
• For melee, an Olympic Torch. I'd like to make it on fire, but I'm
not proposing any combat effects from it.
• An energy drink in a bottle instead of a can for the secondary slot.
I want it to be like Gatorade because it came out in 1967, while
TF2 takes place in 1968. Also, I can't imagine an Olympic-themed gun.

Hooray for Google Images...
olivewreath_bwsmall.GIF

and hooray for Wikipedia.
220px-Olivesfromjordan.jpg220px-Koeh-229.jpg120px-Olive-tree-leaf-0.jpg

220px-Olympic_flame.jpg250px-Li_Ling_during_2008_Summer_Olympics_opening_ceremony.jpg

220px-Cocacolacollection.JPG

I plan to use these pictures as references.

Now that I'm done telling my idea... how do I implement it?
I don't know what program I need to use to make models
or any of the stuff I will need to submit. Would someone be
kind enough to tell me while I get a good night's sleep?
You can comment on my thoughts, too, of course.

Replies

  • ABCZZT
    Disregard the request for assistance. I read the "read this first" thread.

    I've come up with some names for my items:

    Hat: Winner's Wreath. The scout can usually
    beat anybody in a foot race. And if I called it
    kotinos, it would break the convention of
    hat names containing more than one word.

    Melee: Traveler's Torch. Not sure what to
    say about the name... but I've decided to
    let an orange light bulb, appropriately
    shaped, represent the flame on the end.

    Drink: Run-Up. Sounds similar to 7-up, it's
    supposed to help him run like bonk does,
    and if I'm a runner up in the contest,
    then it would make a good pun.

    I found a free program to make models with.
    It's Anim8or, and it can export .3ds & .obj files.
    The wreath is what got me going, I'm doing it first.
    So far, I've made the little stem-like part at the
    base of a leaf. I'll do the rest of the leaf next.

    stemd.jpg

    This is the leaf stem by itself.

    branchstem.jpg

    This is the stem attached to a branch.

    The curve at the bottom of the stem follows
    the path of a circle. It took me a long time
    using notepad, the calculator, and my head
    to figure out where to place the center and
    what the radius should be so that the circle
    would be tangent to the branch and the
    cylindrical part of the stem.

    circlecalculations.jpg

    The center of the branch's cross-section is the origin.
    The branch's radius is 5. The stem's cylindrical part
    has a radius of 2.5 and a height of 10, and it rests on
    the top of the branch. Along with the curve, the total
    height of the stem is 11, and its width is 6.

    That's how I treated the math. But the model's center
    is actually at the bottom of the cylinder, in its center.
  • Ikimono
  • limesimme
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    limesimme polycounter lvl 11
    So what you are saying is that you are CODING the model?
    Hardcore
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    I must admit that's an interesting method to use. I've never heard of the program you're using before now but it looks somewhat outdated even for a free program.

    You may want to look up Blender though, it's an open source modeling program that has a more modern feature set.

    Good luck with your entry, you've got some good ideas going.
  • Ikimono
    limesimme wrote: »
    So what you are saying is that you are CODING the model?
    Like i said, "Wat?"
  • nrek
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    nrek polycounter lvl 14
    ABCZZT wrote: »
    I found a free program to make models with.
    It's Anim8or....

    Oh man Anim8or, that brings back memories! I probably wouldn't be doing game art had I not found that program. It may be outdated but it should have more than enough tools for you to model out all of your items. I like the idea of the flaming torch as a weapon, hopefully you can get some nice looking fire fx on it.
  • Ikimono
    nrek wrote: »
    Oh man Anim8or, that brings back memories! I probably wouldn't be doing game art had I not found that program. It may be outdated but it should have more than enough tools for you to model out all of your items. I like the idea of the flaming torch as a weapon, hopefully you can get some nice looking fire fx on it.
    I remember a lot of screaming and shoving spinters under my nails after using that program to let out the frustration. /joke
  • ABCZZT
    I'm done with the leaf. I scrapped the idea I had
    of making the leaf steam a separate part, along
    with the curve at the bottom. I feared I might go
    over the 800 triangle limit with just the leaves.
    By my count, each leaf contains 50, and I plan
    to put 4 pairs on each side of the wreath for a
    total of 16, exactly fulfilling the triangle limit.
    But it's not a hard limit, so it won't be too much
    of a problem if I add another 100 or so with
    the main branch of the wreath, will it?

    leaffront.jpgleafback.jpgleafside.jpg

    The hexagonal prism and the point at the top
    have a combined height of 111. It still extends
    1 unit below the origin to sink into the branch
    and still has a radius of 2.5. For the curve of
    the edge of the leaf, I plotted y = x² from
    x = -5 to x = 5 in steps of 1. Then I scaled it to
    have a width of 20 and a length of 100. I copied it,
    pasted it, rotated it, and placed one on each side
    of the leaf with one end on the pencil-like part's point.

    The last part is the hardest to describe.
    I made a triangle with one side coinciding
    with one side of the hexagon and one side
    on the x-axis, going away from the hexagon.
    The 3rd side is obvious, and it was scalene.
    I extended this triangle into a prism parallel
    to the main "pencil," divided into 5 sections.
    For each slice of the prism, I dragged the
    outward points over to the corresponding
    points on the curve that I placed (skipping
    over every other point that I had plotted).

    I did make sure that the ends of the curves
    at the base of the leaf went to the sides of
    the "pencil," not into it. The last things I did
    were removing the 2D curves and the unseen
    inner faces of the triangular prism that had
    been formed from the side coincident with
    the hexagon's side.
  • Fragus
    wtf? Can't you just download Blender and watch a couple of tutorials? we don't need mathematical equations, in fact, I hate math :poly142:
  • Y_M
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    Y_M polycounter lvl 10
    This is almost as crazy as making a map with just notepad!

    Do yourself a favour and pick up blender, it's free and has a good commercial license.
  • Danglebob
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    Danglebob polycounter lvl 15
    let the dude use the program he wants! haha
    you are going about this in a very methodical way, and i think itll help in the long run if you run into scaling issues.

    i think you could reduce the poly count on the leaves pretty easily. first i wouldn't make it a hexagonal prism, but rather just a rectangular. you have to remember how close the player is going to see it. and no one's gonna be able to tell you got rid of a couple of sides on the stems. also you could weld some of the vertices together in the middle (see image) and still retain the same shape.
    leaf_po.jpg


    hope that helps. :D good luck.
  • ABCZZT
    Screwonhed - thanks for the hint! I kept the
    hexagonal prism, but my polygon count was
    still reduced from 50 to 30 per leaf.

    I found a link to an archive file that contains
    the models of the 9 classes. It sure beats
    taking screenshots from the model viewer.

    I've constructed the main part of the wreath.
    I won't bore you with math this time, it was
    made through trial and error. Next step is to
    put the leaves on it, then apply color/texture.

    Here's a bunch of pictures.
    How does it look so far?

    brancht.jpgbranchortho.jpg

    branchfront.jpgbranchback.jpg

    branchside.jpgbranchtop.jpg
  • ABCZZT
    I'm done with the wreath for now.
    It has a total of 842 triangles, and
    I used a single 8 x 8 texture on it.
    I started with 256 x 256, and I
    wanted to put veins on the leaves
    while leaving everything else in
    solid colors. But nearly the entire
    thing was defined by a single pixel!
    So I scaled the texture down as
    much as I could without altering the
    appearance of the model negatively.

    I could go back and do something
    about the textures, but making the
    torch and sports drink has a higher
    priority for me.

    wreathtexture8.gif This is the 8x8 texture.

    wreath.jpgwreathworn.jpg
  • Simski
    Y_M wrote: »
    This is almost as crazy as making a map with just notepad!

    Do yourself a favour and pick up blender, it's free and has a good commercial license.
    I agree with this.

    ABCZZT, your program seems very restrictive and I don't think you'll be able to create anything of good enough quality to be made official with it. I would recommend that you pick up some more advanced modeling programs, such as Blender.

    I am not saying you don't have the potential to do good, I'm saying you don't have the tools to do good.
  • tex_cookiedough
  • ABCZZT
    It's been a while since I last worked on this...

    Anyways, I thought of something great to
    put on the bottle. Originally I thought it
    would be a good idea to put the TF2 symbol
    on the lid of the bottle, but I wouldn't know
    how to animate the lid coming off when it
    gets equpped. So the bottle won't come
    with a lid. I don't know how to make jiggle
    bones for the liquid either, so I have to
    cover up the surface of the liquid.

    Here it is, a variation on those rings on the
    Olympic flag. I made it in Paint.

    ringscomparison.jpg

    Personally, I think the 10° one looks better,
    so that's the one I put on the bottle.
    Which one do you guys like better?

    The bottle was pretty easy to make.

    bottleb.jpg

    Here's the bottle with the rings on it.
    It doesn't look quite as nice as I'd like,
    but it's still much better than the wreath.
    I don't really know how to deal with the
    rest of the bottle, though.

    bottle2c.jpg
  • The Scrub
    try and make the TF2 symbols ever so slightly smaller and arange them like this
    800px-Olympic_Rings.svg.png
    remember you won't get a 360 view of the bottle anyway
    and because it's a weapon you can get away with a bigger texture than with hats and more polys too so it won't look so urgh pixelised


    Oh... and coding your model is impressive. I mean I'm modeling in Blender and I'm doing a lot worse than anyone here so I'd hate to have to resort to a program like that.
  • RossC
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    RossC polycounter lvl 9
    Yeah, although I agree with everyone that you should use Blender, I think you're doing pretty fine with what you have. It's obvious you're most used to making models this way, so go for it. So far it looks good.
  • ABCZZT
    The Scrub wrote: »
    try and make the TF2 symbols ever so slightly smaller and arange them like this

    If I arranged them like that, I wouldn't be able to link
    the ends together. Plus I don't want to copy the
    original Olympic flag too much.
    The Scrub wrote: »
    and because it's a weapon you can get away with a bigger texture than with hats and more polys too so it won't look so urgh pixelised

    I'm using a 512 x 512 texture and I got that.
    I'll see if adding more polygons helps. Thanks.
  • ABCZZT
    wreaththumb.jpg
    Winner's Wreath

    runupthumb.jpg
    Run-Up

    torchthumb.jpg
    Traveler's Torch

    I finished the Run-Up energy drink, it turned out well.
    I modified the wreath so it would have under 800
    triangles, it should now have 776. I made a plain
    old torch. I would have liked to make it have a
    flashlight on the end shaped like a fire, but I still
    can't figure out how to do that.

    And now I just submitted them. 40 MINUTES LATE.
    And then I realized when I submitted the torch, I
    forgot to change the "Proposed Item Name" field
    from Run-Up to Traveler's Torch.

    Somebody shoot me.
  • Ikimono
    This is just painful to look at.

    Seriously man, go get an actual 3D package to use.
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    ABCZZT wrote: »

    And now I just submitted them. 40 MINUTES LATE.
    And then I realized when I submitted the torch, I
    forgot to change the "Proposed Item Name" field
    from Run-Up to Traveler's Torch.

    Somebody shoot me.

    You can resubmit an item as an updated version as long as you mention that it's a new version in the additional info box.

    And honestly man, I think you'd be better served to learn Blender or something if you plan to continue modeling. Whatever you're using at the moment looks way too cumbersome to do anything terribly complex.
  • Ikimono
    Seriously......what program are you trying to use?
  • ABCZZT
    Ikimono wrote: »
    This is just painful to look at.

    And you are painful to listen to.

    If you'd take the time to look at
    more than just the end of this
    thread, you'd find it in the 2nd
    post: I used Anim8or.
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    ABCZZT wrote: »
    And you are painful to listen to.

    If you'd take the time to look at
    more than just the end of this
    thread, you'd find it in the 2nd
    post: I used Anim8or.

    Just from looking at the website for that program it looks like it's pretty well past it's prime. I'd still suggest downloading Blender considering it's more modern feature set.
  • Simski
    ABCZZT wrote: »
    And you are painful to listen to.

    If you'd take the time to look at
    more than just the end of this
    thread, you'd find it in the 2nd
    post: I used Anim8or.

    I don't really think people wonder what program you're using, rather they wonder WHY you're using it.
  • Japhir
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    Japhir polycounter lvl 16
    Anim8or was the program i started out with. I don't recall ever having to manually fill in coördinates though :O.
    I then switched to milkshape 3d, which was horrible, then max. :)
  • ABCZZT
    I either resubmitted my items or
    I only submitted them just now...
    I still had the upload page open
    and I just noticed there was an
    error message saying that the
    thumbnail has to be a JPG file.
  • Ikimono
    Animator is a program that you use to learn how to make basic shapes and say, "hey look at what i made mom!"

    Seriously, take all our advice and get either Blender, Maya, or 3D Max
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Its a little late for the contest but: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

    Like everyone else, I HIGHLY suggest stop using Anim8tor immediately and download Blender. You won't get anywhere with what you have now. Look at some tutorials for Blender and you should be all set.
  • Polosko
  • Lol PLZ!
    Damn, this sucks. I agree, you really don't deserve the greentooth badge. If you get it, anyone who attempted the contest, like Polosko, should get the greentooth badge. I really don't care about the badge, but your thing looks like something I could easily make in mesh on blender.
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    Come one people, I'm pretty sure this was his first experience modeling anything and he was using an inferior program to boot. You don't have to be dicks about it.
  • EVIL
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    EVIL polycounter lvl 18
    LOL, polosko, you guys are dicks!

    This guy has very little (to no) experience but at least he tried and send something in! Hell it might not be the best game art you have ever seen but at least he did something! plus you have no idea in how much effort he put into it! Hell for all we know it was allot more then laro for example! It takes allot of effort to start fully inexperienced with a very strange free modeling program. I was surprised he came this far! so yeah, this guy deserved the greentooth.

    If you wanted it as well then you should have done something! and in polosko's case, finished your damn models!
  • Simski
    I agree with Evil.
    His models aren't good at all, but the effort he put into it is worth rewarding.

    He seriously need to pick up a better modeling program if he wants to continue though :/
    It's like watching someone enter a photo manipulation contest while only using MSpaint.
  • Lol PLZ!
    Ok, so if I made a cheap box for a hat, a tube for a melee, and a fat cylinder for a can of juice and submitted it all before the deadline would I deserve the badge?
    *Scouts voice*:Um, no!
    As I thought!
    @Simski: He put little to no effort in the models. Why would it be rewarding?
    @EVIL: Maybe I am a dick, but I think this person should of known not to use some retarded free modeling program. This guy probably knows that he wont win lol, so why submit?
  • Polosko
    Lol PLZ! wrote: »
    Damn, this sucks. I agree, you really don't deserve the greentooth badge. If you get it, anyone who attempted the contest, like Polosko, should get the greentooth badge. I really don't care about the badge, but your thing looks like something I could easily make in mesh on blender.
    Please don't get me in this. I was a little moody and tipsy at the time. I honestly respect all modelers on this website. Anyone who did enter should get the greentooth badge, to show they tried and were successful by using their unique skills and by having support from the community. I'm sorry for anyone I offended when making the old post. Oh, and I totally agree with you Simski.
    :poly103:
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    Lol PLZ! wrote: »
    Ok, so if I made a cheap box for a hat, a tube for a melee, and a fat cylinder for a can of juice and submitted it all before the deadline would I deserve the badge?
    *Scouts voice*:Um, no!
    As I thought!
    @Simski: He put little to no effort in the models. Why would it be rewarding?
    @EVIL: Maybe I am a dick, but I think this person should of known not to use some retarded free modeling program. This guy probably knows that he wont win lol, so why submit?

    Honestly why does it matter to you that much? It's a virtual badge in a video game.

    I'd like to see this guy use a real program and start getting some real experience in 3d.
  • Ruskeydoo
    As regards ABCZZT getting a badge, leave it to valve to judge.

    As regards ABCZZT getting into modelling, I think he's taken the first few steps and we should encourage him to push his skills further. I'm not even going to say he has to use a more advanced program. Loads of art forms are about deliberately making things hard to force innovation and develop a distinctive style.

    @Norron - go look at the TF2 forums. Witness the rage that other people getting things in TF2 causes ;)
  • Sgt_Dippy
    Come on now, this guy had to work with an inferior modeling program that requires tons of patience and time to get the simplest of things done. I think he deserves a nice tree (that has some sort of exotic fruit that grows off of it) and 2 greentooth badges.
  • BANG!
    I am sure none of us can do better than he did with that application!

    He deserves the greentooth badge or even a unique item for doing it with such application xD

    But next time use a more up to date/advanced application like Blender, which is free, this Animator approach is way too technicaly and you're loosing the artistic part, with better applications you get more freedom for creativity once you know how to use it of course.
  • Simski
    Ruskeydoo wrote: »
    I'm not even going to say he has to use a more advanced program. Loads of art forms are about deliberately making things hard to force innovation and develop a distinctive style.
    I can sympathize with this, as I personally enjoy making advanced painting in ms paint or the msn hand writing window and I have no idea how to use photoshop...
    *shamelessly showing off*
    *shamelessly showing off*
    *shamelessly showing off*

    When entering a contest however, I still think that unless you're already insanely good with the program you're using you should use a more advanced program, so you don't have to send in stick figures.

    Still, nice effort :D!!
  • Fragus
    I agree that he deserves a badge just for his enthusiasm and work but in all seriousness, if he wanted to do something good and original, if he was truly inspired and desired to win he would've used Blender with a couple thousand of hours of YouTube tutorials and not Anim8or.
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    Well do note in his first post that he said he doesn't know jack about modeling or what software he should use. It would explain quite a bit.
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    this man deserves the medal. Just for all the hard work he put and this is actually quite original.
  • Mico27
    I'll laught if valve actually post this submition in their blogpost and put it under the winner category of: Entry made by using most obsolete 3D program.

    (like how they made categories when they showed up the propaganda posters at the end of the contest.)
  • Captain_Spaulding
    These would be great items... for team fortress 1 :D
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