If Valve won't fix it, then we will.

What is it?

The TF2 Polishing Project is a collaborated effort between several artists and developers to build a unified, player-made “polishing” update for Team Fortress 2. A selection of rigging, animation, texture, sound and optomization fixes, adjustments and additions to help TF2 look and play a lot better than it currently does.

This project aims to fix large, obvious issues: Like the fact that most revolvers don't reload actual bullets. All the way down to smaller, less noticeable problems like missing LODs or poorly optimized models. It also aims to make some adjustments to otherwise working game assets in order to fix consistency problems like the Grenade Launcher having 6 cylinders instead of 4, and so on.

Later on, once all that is done, we may look into some other changes, like updating the kill icons and particle effects to bring them up to a more modern standard. But right now, we're focused on the big issues.

How will it work?

The Polishing Project will go through a number of “phases” that are dedicated to fixing, adjusting or replacing different parts of the game files. Phase 1 will be the high priority, Phase 2 will be medium, Phase 3 low, and so on and so forth.

In addition, all phases of the Polishing Project will be released to the public for use on servers that allow custom skins as a kind of game-wide skin pack. But our end goal is to get everything implemented in the game proper, and that may take some time.

Can I help?

Of course! The Polishing Project is a free-reign project. If you feel you have something to add, whether it be skill at modelling, animating, texture artistry, rigging, coding, particle effects, optomization, or even if you just know the right people or have good organisational skills, then you are more than welcome to join up!

If you want to get in on the action, then please either contact me here on Steam, or visit our FacePunch page (linked in the “website” section of this page) and send a PM to me, “Ona”, on that forum. Once you're in, make a post in the “Who are you and what can you do?” Discussions page to let everybody know what's what.

Anything I should know?

This is a freeform project and is being done totally out of our love of TF2. There are no plans for payment, and the only reward is the end result itself. There is a chance that no matter what we do, Valve may turn it down in the end (it wouldn't be the first time) so please, if you are interested in this project or want to help, just be aware that nothing is set in stone. At least not right now. We cannot make any promises and we cannot guarantee anything. If nothing else, we want to make a nice, singular skin pack for players to use. But if all goes well, then we'll get these changes implemented.

We are all human beings with our own lives and obligations. This project is to be done only when we have the time to do it and it will be finished when it is finished.

FacePunch Thread[facepunch.com]