[Tool] TFMV - TF2 Loadout viewer

TFMV (Team Fortress Model Viewer) is a tool for Windows that makes it easier to load and preview TF2 player item loadouts in the model viewer "HLMV" and also helps for testing and developing workshop items by automating file loading and adding features on top of HLMV for tasks which are otherwise impossible or require tedious manual file managing and editing.

The tool also lists the TF2 items so you can easily pick and load items by their icon instead of having to search and pick the models by file name.
TFMV downloads the items list and icons from the official servers, so it's always up to date and the latest items can be loaded.

TFMV manages the models and materials(aka skins) of each item through a visual interface, rather than having search, load or edit files and dependencies manually.
It also makes it possible to switch skins(red/blue) on model attachments, change paint colors, easily edit skins with the material editor and test material changes in real time, take screenshots with specific resolutions, take screenshots with transparency, automatically capture screenshots for each of item's paint color, load workshop .zip compiled items, etc

Download & Installation

 

Required to already be installed your computer for TFMV:

-Windows operative system, obvious? but just mentioning because there's no support for Mac.
-Steam
-Team Fortress 2
-NET Framework Runtime[www.microsoft.com]

>> Click here to download TFMV << [www.dropbox.com]

>> Click here to download TFMV (Mirror) << [drive.google.com]

TFMV 1.9.2 changelog:
-fixed (schema) items list download not working. 

 

Installation and running TFMV ~1.9.2.1~

-Open TFMV_1.9.zip and extract the TFMV folder to a folder of your choice.
-Go in the TFMV folder and double click TFMV.exe to start the app.

-The first time you start TFMV, it should automatically detect the Steam and TF2 directories, if not it will prompt you to set them manually in the TFMV Settings tab.
 
If you are having issues setting up the tool, please refer to the FAQ or ask in the comments section.
 

TFMV: Loadout & Items

LOADOUT and ITEMS panels

-The loadout panel shows the character and lists the items that will be loaded into the model viewer.
-The items panel lists the in-game items that we can pick from and add to the loadout.

Selecting items and loading into the model viewer

1-Select a class.
2-Select an item category.
3-Add items to the loadout by double clicking the icons in the items list.
4-Click "Loadout to HLMV" to view the loadout in HLMV.
 
The model viewer (HLMV) should open with your loadout and TFMV will switch to the Skins panel where the team color, paints of the items can be modfied as well as the character material.

 
See the "Using HLMV" section of the guide to learn how to move the camera in HLMV.
 

Adding and removing items from the loadout

You can double click an item in the Items list or the Loadout list to remove it:

Creating a new loadout or modifying it

Click [reset loadout] or [reset] (depending on which panel you are) to clear the current loadout.
If you already have a loadout in HLMV and you are in the SKINS panel click [Edit loadout], it will take you back to the loadout panel where you can add or remove items and then click [Loadout to HLMV] to restart HLMV with the new set of items.

Loading an item as the main model instead of a player model

By default TFMV loads a player model (such as the Scout) as the "main model", cosmetics and weapons are secondary models that are attached to the main model.

However if you wish to load an item or weapon alone you can do this by selecting the item in the LOADOUT list and clicking the arrow button on the left:
 

Saving or Loading loadouts from file

Loadouts can be saved by clicking the icon and loaded from file by clicking the icon.

TFMV: Skins

The Skins panel appears after the items are loaded into HLMV [Loadout to HLMV].
From this panel you can switch the team colors (Red/Blue) as well as modify the paints and material(s) of each item(model).

Note for workshop artists:
Materials and models changes are not saved, TFMV makes a temporary copy of the assets as a mod in \tf\custom\TFMV\ while it's running, these are removed when a loadout is reset or TFMV is closed.
However you can always get the VMT code (that TFMV modifies during preview) on the SKINS panel by clicking on the material_name.vmt of the item's material manager.
-See "Item materials manager" below for more information.

Example: switching team colors and changing the paint color of an item:


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Changing the character's materials to red/blue, grey or white/black mask

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Item materials manager:

For each item (model) there will be a material manager, illustrated as follows + its features:


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Material Editor - real time material modification

Click the pencil button to open the material editor, you can easily test paint colors with the color picker and VMT parameters as they get updated in real time in HLMV:

TFMV: Advanced Settings and Tools

For workshop artists or experienced users, TFMV has a hidden panel with more settings and tools.

Advanced Settings

Click [Advanced Settings] to open the panel, these settings will be applied when HLMV is started.
 

Advanced Tools

This panel is accessible once the items are loaded into HLMV and the Skins panel shows up.
If you haven't expanded the [Advanced Settings] panel before loading into HLMV, you can click the button [>>] on the top right to expand it.
 

Player Bodygroups

You can control the bodygroups form TFMV, where as normally HLMV would reset the bodygroups to visible when refreshing, TFMV ensures bodygroups stay hidden with a transparency mask.
 

Set HLMV window size:

You can click this button to change the scale of the window, these two values represent the scale in pixels of the screenshot that TFMV captures of the HLMV viewport when using the TFMV screenshot feature.
 

Save window size and camera pos/rot as default

Clicking this button will save the current HLMV window size, camera position and rotation and will save it in the Advanced Settings, as the default and startup settings for HLMV.
 

Misc Settings

-Fix player model wrist visual bug: ticking this checkbox disables the "hlp_" bones in the player model as a workaround to the HLMV rendering bug on the wrist for attached models that use this bone.
 
Note to Workshop creators: this feature is a workaround, not a proper solution, it should only be used to take presentation screenshots, not for rigging tests, as this feature disables the hlp_ bones, which disables the vertex weight deformation around the wrists for the attached meshes to the player model, test ingame to see how it really deforms if you have the hlp_ bones rigged to your model.
 
 

TFMV: Loading Workshop compiled items

If you are a TF2 contributor and have TF2 items compiled with the ingame importer tool, you can load the workship .zip files in TFMV.

If .zip files are found in the directory \Team Fortress 2\tf\workshop\import_source\ TFMV will display a "workshop" button under the Sniper class selection button, click the workshop button and it will list your workshop items.

  

TFMV: Loading models from path or file

Loading models from file by Drag & Drop

You can load models from .mdl, .vpk or workshop .zip compiles by dragging and dropping the file into the loadout box, highlithed in orange:

 
 

Loading models by filepath

You can also load models by path, that may be located in \tf\models\ or tf\custom\yourmod\models\ or from the game's files (from tf2_misc_dir.vpk and tf2_textures_dir.vpk).

-Go to the Advanced Settings tab
1-Type the model path
2-Click Add


The model should be added to the loadout list:

TFMV: Paints Chart Tool

This tool automatically generates a chart of all the paints for the items.
The tool can be found in the advanced settings/tools tab once you are in the SKINS panel, click the button >> to open the advanced tools tab, there you should find the "Paints Chart Tool" button, click it to open the tool.

Set the character pose and framing in HLMV then in the Paints Chart Tool panel click "start", do not touch the mouse or keyboard while TFMV is taking the screenshots, as it needs to focus on the HLMV window to refresh the paints, you can cancel at any time if needed, the process may take a few minutes, these GIFs are sped up.


If instead of a mosaic you prefer to have a separate image files for each paint, tick the "Individual images" circle button.
The images will be saved in the screenshots folder.

You can also generate it with the player skin set to the grey material:
 
Note: for each screenshot TFMV needs to focus the HLMV window so it refreshes the skins changes, if you notice that some paints are repeated it means HLMV doesn't have enough time to reload and refresh the VMT changes between each paint.
If so, cancel the paints chart, increase the screenshot refresh delay to a higher value (located on the bottom left) to resolve this issue and start again.
 
  
 

TFMV: Turntable GIF Generator

With this tool you can generate a 360 horizontal turntable of your character loadout or item.

You will find the button to open the tool panel in Advanced Settings > Tool [TFMV] (panel visible after a loadout is loaded)


Before starting the tool, place the object at the center of the HLMV window.
Hold the mouse left click and drag the mouse to the right while trying to maintain the mouse movement horizontal so the object rotates as the tool will do.
If while rotating the object it goes outside the HLMV window area, tweak the object position and distance until you can do a 360 rotation without the object getting out of frame.

Finally click Start.

Start the Turntable tool:


You will find the generated GIF in the screenshots folder.

HLMV: Camera and controls

This part of the guide only covers some basics of what you need to move a bit around HLMV.
For additional information on how to use HLMV see the SDK wiki article:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Model_Viewer

Camera controls:
Left Mouse Button: drag in the center of the viewport to orbit the camera.
LMB: drag on the edge of the viewport to roll the camera.
Ctrl+LMB: drag to orbit the light source.
RMB: drag to dolly the camera back/forward.
Shift+LMB: drag with pan the camera left/right up/down.

Changing the character animation:
1- Go to the Sequence tab.
2- Select the animation.
3- Set the animation play speed.
4- Scroll through the animation frames and stop at a frame.



 
 

HLMV: Render quality

If the models in HLMV appears aliased(pixelated around the edges) or blurry, you will need to manually force the graphics settings of the model viewer application (hlmv.exe), Click here to see a tutorial on how to create application graphics settings profiles for NVIDIA, AMD or Intel graphcs cards.[www.howtogeek.com]

The application file "HLMV.exe" generaly is located in the game folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\" unless you have your steam games library on another drive or location, in that case check in the TFMV settings tab to see the game's path.

To improve the model viewer rendering quality, we can increase the "anti-aliasing" to x8 or higher and enabling and/or increase the "texture filtering" aka "anisotropic filtering" setting, this should give better results.

After creating the application graphics profile, restart HLMV for the changes to apply.

Click on the image to see it in full size and better notice the differences

FAQ / Troubleshooting

• TFMV crashes when I start it!

  Make sure you have the lastest version of .Net Framework[www.microsoft.com]installed.
  
  

• Can't download the new items list(aka schema)

  If you have an antivirus or firewall make sure its not blocking TFMV from accesing the web and downloading the schema.
  Note that around the time of a TF2 major update release, it is likely the TF2 items list servers might be busy, slow or even down and may take minutes or hours to come back online until you can download the new items list.
  
  

• How can you load Unusual effects?

  Unfortunately its not possible, Valve's HLMV model viewer doesn't support particle effects aka unusual effects. However you can use https://loadout.tf/ to preview those
  
  

• Problem/Solution is not listed here?

  Check the comments to see if your question has been answered in the latest pages, if not ask
  If you found a bug or encountered a crash, please let me know in the comments, thanks!

Source Code

TFMV is open source: https://github.com/neodoso/TFMV

[dobrapozitiva]

@fakershroom :P (they/she) To make paints work you need to uncheck the "Material Proxies" checkbox

[fakershroom :P (they/she)]

@dobrapozitiva While that does seem to work, at least to load in models and view them into the viewer, I can't seem to get paints to work on items, as applying them through TFMV's 'Skins' section doesn't change them in the model viewer.

[dobrapozitiva]

Guys, I think I've found a solution. I downloaded hlmv++, installed everything according to the instructions from gamebanana (just drop 2 files into the bin folder), and then simply renamed one of these files, hlmvplusplus.exe, to hlmv.exe in the steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin folder. Now everything works as before

[Niki]

Can confirm what caw-caw wrote. It doesn't work anymore since 64 bit update. The same can be said for the forked version.

[Mami Tomoe]

On that note, how do you use TFMV while cutting off access to newer cosmetics?

[caw-caw-robinjay (she/her)]

update: the 64x update did indeed break TFMV. the only way to fix it without cutting off access to newer cosmetics was using DepotDownloader to acquire the last 32x tf2 update files and patching those into a copy of TF2. if you do this for yourself, the only TF2 folders TFMV needs to work are bin, hl2, and tf, so that should save you some space. however, THIS WILL ONLY WORK UNTIL THE NEXT BATCH OF COSMETICS ARE ADDED. once that time comes, TFMV will be fully unable to access them, unless there's some trick I'm missing. TFMV needs an update badly to fix this.
tl;dr - TFMV is only technically operable, thanks to the new 64x update. while it can be fixed, it will break again the next time cosmetics are added, so it needs an update to fix the issue.

[caw-caw-robinjay (she/her)]

does this work with the 64 bit version of tf2? ever since installing it, i haven't been able to use the program.

[Floof]

My pc upon opening it Said it would put my pc at risk

[Dumbdestroyer2]

Is it possible to export the created loadout as an fbx file?

[Vipes]

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the frame resets when it's trying to take a transparent image, causing the player model to not be on the frame you wanted anymore.