I lie. Its not actually Monday (or maybe it already is depending on which timezone you’re living in), but I’d like to get an article done before hand just for kicks. For my first article, I’d like to address the female model phenomenon. It all started with this (See Figure 1).
(Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the first female model ever created. Courtesy of Neko! Reproduced without permission. I pray he doesn’t mind.)
It is a known fact that a very large percentage of the gaming population are males. Specifically First Person Shooter games. When the ultimate carnage gib blood splatterfest that is TF2 isn’t violent enough for the eager minded gamers that we are, the people who love to customise things like to add a female side to it.
Lets face it. We can’t live without em.
This brings the female models issue to TF2. The Valve team spent some good years developing TF2 to a mirror shine (and it still is being updated today). One of the major aspects of the 9 unique characters was their silhouette. They were all designed so that any player could instantly tell what class they were at a glance, as they were visually distinct from one another (See Figure 2).
(Fig 2. The silhouettes of the TF2 characters. As Valve puts it: “…the ability to visually read the characters even with no internal
detail”.)
People started asking Valve, “Why didn’t you make female models?”, and the answer is quite simple. The introduction of female models means that extra time must be spent actually developing them so that they retain the same “flair” as the original 9, and that they stay as close to their silhouettes as possible. If they all had different silhouettes, you cause several problems: The inability to instantly (or easily) tell the classes apart from a distance away, and the over-complication.
Yet, the masses buckled to the urge of equal opportunities and sexual equality (or lack thereof) and female models were created. I will do my best to list as many as I have found.
(Fig 3. Neko’s Female Scout. Located here)
If i’m not mistaken, this was the first ever female TF2 model created. Much attention was made to keeping the silhouette as close to the original scout as possible. It was a revolution, but the forum goons soon turned their heads towards the attractiveness of the face. The model itself was a great achievement in female gaming, but fans wanted more.
(Fig 4 & 5. superaldo’s female pyro here, and The Fanciest of Pants’ Femme pyro here)
Valve has been very hush hush about the Pyro’s gender. Or whether or not it is even human. The (intentional?) slipup in the TF2 blog during the Meet the Sniper/Spy Update caused much uproar in the TF2 community.
Typical TF2 Forum Comment (GOVT Warning, may cause brain cell loss) : “She’s inconsolable”? OMG PYRO R A GURL LOLOLO!!L!O!!!!11!!!!111oneone
Nevertheless, several female versions of the pyro were created. Complete with their own jigglebone animation!
(Fig 6. AyesDyef’s Female Scout, currently work in progress)
Another excellent piece of modelling work is AyesDyef’s female scout. Not only does it look almost exactly like the original scout, it even looks quite good! The eventual final product will include working facial animations, gibs and the fixing of any remaining bugs (The rather awkward torso distortion as seen in Figure 6) .There are even plans to re-record all the scout voices using a female voice-actor, which really goes to show how dedicated some people are when making these models. I wish AyesDyef the best of luck finishing what seems to be an excellent addition to the Team Fortress 2 custom content.
Anyway, here are some other mentionables that I trawled across FPSbanana (which is, by the way the best choice for the latest custom TF2 content) and came across some other female models worth mentioning:
(Fig 7. sana and Mr. Kit’s female engineer here)
(Fig 8. mrkit4423 and photohunt’s Eirin Medic here)
That’s all for now. This was brought to you by Nanosheep, now signing off.
[EDIT]
Signing back on! New female targets aquired! All information divulged is hereby deemed for your eyes only. Study them with care!
(Fig 9. Top secret female spy work in progress by Chemical Alia)
(Fig 10. Top secret female medic work in progress by CelebrenIthil)
(Fig 11. Top secret female pyro [STATUS UNKNOWN])
The situation is currently undergoing hostil- INCOMING FIREEEEARRRRRAARghhhhghgH!!!!
[EDIT TRANSMISSION LOST]
