So, I’ve got this thing, this comic, that people want, and it occurred to me that perhaps I could hold it hostage for some stuff that I want. So, gimme these things, somebody, or I’ll shoot my comic in the head and dump it in a ravine. Though, at the moment, the comic only exists in my head, so that would involve shooting myself in the head, which would make dumping myself in a ravine a little dicey. Plus, Google Maps shows the nearest ravine is a bit of a drive.
Anyway. Posing! The TF2 ragdolls aren’t a lot of fun to pose, but they’re sort of manageable. Their bodies act weird and their heads are very difficult to get right. Some of their legs bend the wrong way (the sniper, for one, and the scout, for two), presumably to make them look more dead (ragdolls are dead versions of the characters).
Their faces are nice and expressive, however, as you can see below.
The faceposer works a little different than it does on the HL2 characters. Instead of sliders for each eyebrow and corner of the mouth and so forth, the sliders have sort of general purposes, such as “bighappy” or “uppermad” or certain letter combinations like “EEE” or “TH”. These sliders manipulate the mouth, or forehead, or sometimes entire regions of the face. This is both good and bad. It’s great for big, broad expressions but not so good for subtler ones. The real problem here is that the expressions are always symmetrical — you can’t cryptically lift a single eyebrow or draw up one corner of the mouth for a crooked smile. With the exception of blinking the eyes independently, anything you do to one side of the face you do to the other.
Now, I know Concerned wasn’t exactly an exercise in subtlety, but sometimes a good facial expression could save a doomed comic and I probably spent more time on faces than anything else while posing. Where would Frohman be without that one raised eyebrow as he contemplated whatever bog-stupid thing he was about to do?
If I were writing a wishlist, and I am, it would definitely include a new faceposer that worked along similar lines as the HL2 faceposer does. I don’t know if such a thing is possible, because I don’t know how any of this stuff truly works, but I just thought I’d put it out there. At least if people know I’m looking for one they can tell me if they see one pop up in a mod somewhere. I know Valve is supposed to be releasing some new SDK tools for TF2 (unless they already have), so maybe it’ll be tied to that.
Also, since I’m asking for things, it would be cool if you could save expressions in a little database and then call them up while posing so you didn’t have to start from scratch every time. I’d also like a pony and a bag of money.
Speaking of posing, lookit these mitts.
I love the hands on the TF2 guys. Big beautiful wonderful fat chunky fun expressive hands. Look at the medic’s hand next to the hands of the NPCs in HL2:
About midway through the Concerned run, a fingerposer showed up for Garry’s Mod, but I honestly never bothered with it. If I needed to put something in someone’s hand I just shot it from an angle that looked halfway decent and moved on. But these TF2 hands are begging to be posed. They’re big and much harder to hide, and I think just sticking a weapon in them and pretending the hand is holding it is going to be a lot tougher. Plus, the hands are just so great I think they need to be posed. I want to bend those fat fingers. They’re beautiful! These ragdolls are like cartoons that I can drag around and play with.
I was going to say this was number two on my wishlist, but I think it’s really number one. A fingie-poser for the TF2 lads. Just some way for those hands to cradle a weapon, point, and make a fist or a thumbs-up would be incredible.
So, uh, get on it, whoever you are, and make these things happen.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Matthew // Feb 25, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I think they need a finger poser for the TF2 players to. without it theres no holdng the beer for th demo man, no needles for the medic, and no scout holding his bat.
2 chris12 // Feb 25, 2008 at 9:52 pm
well, hey, you are back!
what will be new sir
3 Baggie // Feb 26, 2008 at 1:35 am
Man, you missed out on a decent medi-gun model! The one that’s there has the hose at the end sticking out, not pose-able for peanuts.
4 Ayrton // Feb 26, 2008 at 8:10 am
I tried to make a pose with the pyro having his axe held with two hands above his head, so I could make a screenie of him jumping off a ledge at a demoman but then I found out that you can’t lif his arms any higher than horizontal when they’re by his sides so I scrapped that idea :(
5 Christopher // Feb 26, 2008 at 8:58 am
Yeah, they’re not very bendy, unfortunately, but you couldn’t really put the HL2 dolls’ arms above their heads convincingly either.
6 Simon // Feb 26, 2008 at 2:04 pm
yes, a new poser sounds like it would be quite… Handy! yuk yuk yuk
7 chris12 // Feb 26, 2008 at 4:17 pm
cool, i would like to have a thing that could save expressions you editted too.
it could be cool.
so, will you do comics with those guys? i like it!
8 Mike // Feb 26, 2008 at 4:36 pm
The, uh, the hand fetish stuff is a bit disturbing.
9 Mickiscoole // Feb 26, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I’m sorry, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists
10 John Hurtt // Feb 26, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Pssst! I’LL negotiate with you! Uh, actually I can’t give you any of the demands you listed. But maybe something else? Can’t hurt to ask. I figure I OWE you for all the laughs you gave me with “Concerned”.
11 Dan // Feb 26, 2008 at 9:11 pm
From what garry has said the TF2 models are significantly different from the HL2 ones, which is why the existing tools he had for HL2 models doesn’t work for TF2 ones, and why the TF2 face poser is different, and why there is no finger poser ATM. Garry probably only made the posers in the first place because it was a useful tool and it was fairly easy for him to code using stuff Valve already had in the engine. Evidently there aren’t equivalents for the TF2 models (or the old tools would have worked for them out of the box).
The good news is, while garry works on Garry’s Mod, we have lua addons, and doubtless someone is hacking together something as I am typing this.
12 Draco_2k // Feb 26, 2008 at 11:07 pm
“Also, since I’m asking for things, it would be cool if you could save expressions in a little database and then call them up while posing so you didn’t have to start from scratch every time.”
You mean like, more functional than the presets that appear at the top of the poser dialog?
13 Christopher // Feb 27, 2008 at 10:05 am
Can you alter those presets? Like, can I create my own values for them?
14 chris12 // Feb 27, 2008 at 2:28 pm
can someone save those presets? im really curious right, now
15 Dan // Feb 28, 2008 at 8:23 am
“Can you alter those presets? Like, can I create my own values for them?”
I’m pretty sure there’s a button that adds the current values as a new entry.
16 Dan // Feb 28, 2008 at 8:33 am
Yup, just checked, the little “Play” button right next to the preset drop down opens the preset editor where you can add new presets.
It probably should have a different picture on it though, as it looks like it should apply the selected preset… although that itself happens when you simply SELECT a preset from the drop down box.
17 Christopher // Feb 28, 2008 at 10:01 am
Huh, neat. Thanks for the tip!
18 Antoinetteke // Mar 25, 2008 at 4:40 pm
well done, dude
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