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Puppet Fortress

These guys began as simple poseable props, with the intention of being used for a few teaser shots associated with the Puppet Medic set. I was planning on having a few shots of the Medic hand-painting these guys in some kind of workshop setting. Of course, managing a full set of items and a new team of characters(albeit simple characters) turned out to be a ton of work, so those promo images got thrown to the wayside. The only one that survived is the stage shot, which can be seen on the collection page.

It didn't take very long for me to realize they'd be better suited using the TF2 rigs. If I were to distribute these, wouldn't people want access to the TF2 animations? On that note, I swapped them over and reworked their functionality to mesh better with the Team's unique body structures. After that, I wanted to add them into the promo videos for each item, which required setting them up for the game. An exhaustive amount of work later, and these guys became what they are now. They show up in every promo video in the set(excluding the Lancer), and almost every promo image.

I've also included the mannequin I used as a base. There isn't much to say about him, he's the origin point of the other nine marionettes.

I decided to include the simple puppet cross in with these guys, if simply because it'd be weird to have it in a separate upload. The puppet cross is not bulletproof, it functions in a very specific way. I've detailed how to use it down in the notes section.

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-These marionettes share the same rig as their real counterparts, and therefore inherit all of their animations, and function with rig_biped_simple.

-They were originally painted with the intention of them being handheld by the TF2 characters. The scale I use in the promo images is "0.18", usually off of the rootTransform.

-Each character can be stripped of their accessories using bodygroups. There are too many accessories to list here.

-They were not designed to function with misc or hat items. Badges and Canteens still work, however.

-They don't have fingers, so there are no finger bones.

-Each marionette comes with 10 gibs.

-Supports Team colors.

-The base marionette has no animations, and a very simple rig. Works great as a creepy puppet.

-The puppet cross contains four points(North, South, East, West), and was fitted to the Medic's hands. It's a pain to use, given the way SFM determines whether or not props are visible in-camera. If your cross disappears, lock all bones and move the rootTransform into the camera's view.

-On attaching strings to puppets or other characters. Strings are straight lines, they do not bend or warp. I went with this method because animating chains is a nightmare without spring-IK. If you wish to bind a string, select and bind ONLY ITS POSITION to the target. You'll need to expand the transform to get at just the "pos" component. Lock and One as per usual. If you bind the rotation, it will warp the string. I usually like to bind the N/S strings to the hands, and the E/W strings to the feet.


Includes:
puppet\player\ch_demo_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_engineer_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_heavy_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_medic_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_pyro_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_scout_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_sniper_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_soldier_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\ch_spy_marionette.mdl
puppet\player\gibs\demo\puppet_demo_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\demo\puppet_engineer_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\heavy\puppet_heavy_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\medic\puppet_medic_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\pyro\puppet_pyro_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\scout\puppet_scout_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\sniper\puppet_sniper_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\soldier\puppet_soldier_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\player\gibs\spy\puppet_spy_gib(1-10).mdl
puppet\props\prp_marionette.mdl
puppet\props\prp_puppet_cross.mdl

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