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Magnifying Glass [ still experimental!]

"Magnificent!" ~ Spy while stumbling upon the magnifying glass.

This... is a magnifying glass. It has two plano-convex lenses, covered by two translucent surfaces to allow for light reflection. It magnifies and it has a weapon_bone to be easier placed into a character's hand, but it will still need to be rotated to fit perfectly and the fingers must be wrapped around manually. Just drag a character's name into the Magnifying_Glass and then zero its weapon_bone.

Tip 1: You can Add Override Materials to the Magnifying Glass and then send it to Element Viewer > Model. There you can right-click on Glass and Glass2, select Add Attribute > float and name it $refractamount and then right-click again on Glass and Glass2 and Create Animation Set for Element. This will give you 2 sliders with which you can control the two lenses' refraction amount. Note that one of them will miniaturize and the other will magnify if you increase the settings, so might as well just use this on either Glass or Glass2 and stick with the camera on one side of the lens for a shot.

Tip 2: You can edit the $refractamount in the Glass and Glass2 VMTs located in workshop/materials/models/detonatress/magnifying but make sure that the numbers are the same, and one has a - in front while the other hasn't. This way both of the lenses gain the same amount of refraction.
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Known Bugs:
Due to SFM's weird bugs, if something approaches the lens, it will see the reflection of its own back. Currently, we are unaware of a fix for this peculiar behavior in SFM.

In addition, there is another bug that causes the lens to only magnify while it's oriented with its tail down, and miniaturizes when its tail is oriented up. That's where the Lens bone comes in! It allows you to rotate and animate the lens around its axis, so that no matter which way the model is rotated the lens continues to magnify. Rotate only the GREEN circle of the Lens bone.

The refract does not render volumetrics. No idea what can be done there.
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Thanks goes to:
episoder for providing the normal map for the lens and for the idea with the rotating lens for the workaround for the second bug.
Hyperchaotix for the softsilver cubemap used in the rim. Link to workshop item: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=363777336
Arcane for the Belgian Detective texture fix: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=438191369&searchtext=detective+texture+fix

Includes:
detonatress\magnifying\magnifying_glass.mdl