Attention, Steam Workshop Creators!

[tf2.com]

Steam Workshop Creators, can we have your attention please. The following message is so urgent, so time-sensitive, we made the executive decision to skip TikTok and Twitter entirely and break the glass on the most bleeding-edge communication technology available.


Welcome to the future. Welcome… to a "blog-post".


"Wow!" you're probably thinking. "I forgot how hard reading is!" Yeah, it's scary how fast you lose that. Don't worry, we'll be brief:


The last few Team Fortress summer events have only been item updates. But this year, we're planning on shipping a full-on update-sized update — with items, maps, taunts, unusual effects, war paints and who knows what else?! Which means we need Steam Workshop content! YOUR Steam Workshop content!


So get to work! (Or back to work, if you were already working but got distracted when the entire internet simultaneously found out about this state-of-the-art blog-post.) Make sure to get your submissions into the Steam Workshop by May 1st, so they can be considered for this as-yet-unnamed, un-themed, but still very exciting summer-situated (but not summer-themed) (unless you wanted to develop summer-themed stuff) update.

Read on the TF2 Blog...

 

[nesman]

based

 

[Micnax]

Wow, that was fast. Crash's video was only posted yesterday.

 

[Huwareyou]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[cjetson]

No joke, this is the best gaming news I've heard in a long time, and that includes yesterday's Nintendo Direct. Since there's a May 1st deadline that means I actually gotta bite the bullet and learn some Hammer and some Blender and some Hammer++ (and vscript probably?). It'd be cool to contribute something to one of my favorite games of all time and with an actual deadline there's no better time to learn some new skills.

 

[XEnderFaceX]

The Open Letter worked, I'm crying Its amazing

 

[bajablink]

W

 

[Sonoma]

#PITSWEEP2023

 

[Tiftid]

No joke, this is the best gaming news I've heard in a long time, and that includes yesterday's Nintendo Direct. Since there's a May 1st deadline that means I actually gotta bite the bullet and learn some Hammer and some Blender and some Hammer++ (and vscript probably?). It'd be cool to contribute something to one of my favorite games of all time and with an actual deadline there's no better time to learn some new skills.

No offense, but I don't think anyone could go from not having any mapping experience to having a map in the game in under three months.
Except maybe the guy who created arena_watchtower?

Probably your best bet would be to team up with a more experienced mapper.
Several people have more than one project they'd like to get artpassed by the deadline, so if you can offer to make someone's map pretty, they'll probably be glad to outsource the effort to you.
There are also a fair few publicly available, unfinished maps hanging around that would be great targets to detail.
You can find them in the orphanage forum.
You could make a map from scratch, but it'd be a serious crunch. Lots of contest maps with deadlines much longer than three months get artpasses that are below the standard of quality you'd expect in TF2. Even I've fallen victim to this!!

Learning Blender and VScript is not strictly necessary nor something I'd say you have time to do. Plenty of good maps have been made with the game's default assets and before TF2 had VScript.
I'd recommend reading some design guides. YM's detailing guides on nodraw.net are fabulous. I've also personally written a few layout design guides.
Idolon has a few guides in his signature. grazr has a few guides as well.

 

[Tiftid]

Wow, that was fast. Crash's video was only posted yesterday.

Apparently void has already been exchanging emails with Valve about the same topic of "we want to make normal maps again" for a little while.
I think Crash's video mainly acted as a gauge of interest. With that many signatures, it became obvious to Valve that this was, in fact, something people actually wanted.