Do it manually.

Create a bunch of edge loops and start moving rows of faces inward and outward.

Excellent work, dude!

I could probably spend hours answering both questions... These aren't easy topics, and I'm pretty busy at the moment so you'll have to make due with a short response!

Light/glow effect:
Your model will need 2 materials (one for your base texture, and the other for the parts that will glow). In blender, assign each material to the corresponding vertices and unwrap like you normally would. If you did this correctly, in the in-game importer you will see options for two materials. Load your base texture for the first material (and set the vmt parameters like you would normally), and then for your second texture load in a secondary texture that is completely yellow in color (or whatever color you want) with a fully white alpha channel. Make sure to check the box in the vmt parameters that corresponds to self-illuminate, and this will make that specific part of your model glow.

Holes through shapes can be done in many ways: extrusions through cylinders, using modifiers, etc. If you are looking to generically put a hole through geometry, you can use the boolean modifier for this (warning: this can drastically increase polygon counts if you aren't careful with how you do it). Create a cylinder > position it through your model where you want the hole to be > add a boolean modifier to your model > in the boolean modifier's object subheading, choose the cylinder you created > make sure the operation is set to "difference" > hit apply modifier.

As for indenting objects, you'll just extrude faces for that. Create edges loops (or use the cut tool), then select the faces you want to indent and extrude them inwards.

Check out this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BlenderTutorialCommunity/discussions/4/864978109436584091/

First of all, the majority of the work comes from planning ahead. From your screenshot, it looks like your model shouldn't take more than 700 tris at max. It's a basic fedora shape hat which can be done easily starting from a cylinder primitive.

Basically, you'll want to start removing edgeloops (I discussed that in the video). You can select an edge of vertices (alt+right click) and remove the loop (delete > edgeloop) to start winding down on polys. For more complicated meshes, you can also remove hidden geometry (stuff that can't be seen because it's hidden by other faces).

As for your question, it's really hard for me to understand what you are asking... It seems like you are having a problem baking your model. Sometimes you can get weird black artifacts for several reasons:

1) Overlapping geometry (make sure there are no duplicate vertices) Select all the vertices in your model > press "w" > remove doubles

2) Flipped normals. Make sure your normals are facing the correct way > select all your vertices and click "recalculate" under the normals tab in the left panel.


I really suggest starting over. It's better to do it a second time once you understand the process. Start with a plan: what do you want to make? A fedora. How can I make it? Starting with a cylinder and slowly extruding. What is my polygon limit? 1400. How can I stay within that limit while ensuring that my hat keeps its quality? Focus on the silhouette and utilize smoothing groups (remember that smoothing in video games isn't done by adding more tris!).

I would just like to add that this is extremely well done and has a significant chance of being shipped!

Workshop limitations require them to be 2 different sets; HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that your idea is impossible. For more complicated ideas such as this one (glacial tiny set for instance), you'll need to contact Valve directly to ensure that they know your two sets are supposed to be "upgradable" after a certain amount of deaths (in my opinion, it should be kills! Or else people will feed purposefully!).

I would finish both sets, then upload them independently, then contact Valve to make sure they know what's up.

Good luck!

Try substituting the x59 blade for the one you have currently.
Reading the instruction manual also helps.
Only check the relevant pages in the blade subheading.
Learning this stuff aint easy, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Lucky that you got to ask me the question, though. It would be hard figuring it out otherwise.

Extract the textures from the vpk and then export these .vtf files to .tga files. In blender's material editor, select relevant vertex groups (i.e. the head) and then load in the texture via the UV window (the head texture). Repeat for other body parts.

If you don't know how to extract things from the vpk, you'll be needing GCFscape and VTFedit.

OK this is a tricky item:

Like you said, it's actually a model that is slightly larger than the default heavy arms. It is rigged to several bones to follow the heavy arms exactly: http://i.imgur.com/RMAHAxh.png

These extra arms have their own texture which contains the actual skin texture as well as the tattoo texture in the alpha channel. The reason the tattoo texture is in the alpha channel rather than directly on the arm is so that it can be paintable (you just set up your texture like you normally would for paint): http://imgur.com/a/DHxzp

As for getting the shading correctly, mimic what they have in the .vmt settings:


Obviously the in-game vmt editor isn't as complex, but try to match the above as close as you can in terms of phong, lightwarps, and paint.

Good luck!