User modifications

Skins are user-created modifications that change the appearance (or where relevant, sound) of weapons, hats, player models, or any other part of the game. Skins are unofficial and are not supported by Valve. Some weapons, such as the Homewrecker, Dalokohs Bar and Vita-Saw, were originally created as skins and were eventually incorporated into the game.

Skins can be created, downloaded and installed by players; they usually aim to change the material, model or even sound of a particular aspect of the game, such as a weapon or character. Most skins are client-side, meaning they show up only for the person who has them installed. However, server owners can apply server-side skins that are viewable by anyone who joins the server.

Skins are used almost entirely for cosmetic and aesthetic purposes; they can range from simple retextures to full-on recreations of certain game aspects. However, skins do not change the stats or effects of any items or any aspects of the game (except in the case of skins deliberately designed as "cheats", e.g. a skin that retextures walls to be transparent).

There are many popular websites that feature skins for Team Fortress 2 that can be downloaded by players.

Players can create their own skins using material-modifying (image-editing) programs such as Photoshop, 3D modeling and animating programs such as Blender or 3DMax, or sound-editing programs such as Audacity. Multiple tutorials on different aspects of skinning are available online.

Testing Skins

Previously, creators of new models had to use cheats in order to test and view their community skins and models. With the addition of the Contribution Page, individuals have been able to submit their creations to be judged and added to TF2's items database. With the addition of the map Item test, mod makers are now able to test their models more effectively so they may be contributed.

Used as cheats

While most skins are used to improve or slightly alter the visual or auditory aspects of the game, some are designed in order to attempt to provide users with an unfair advantage. These include, but are not limited to:

• Materials
  • Seeing players/items through walls.
  • Glow-in-the-dark enemies.
  • Colored bodies with different colored heads.
• Models
  • Show only the hitboxes of players.
  • Skewed to show locations.
    • "Giant head" to see player locations behind obstacles.
    • "Bubble" around pickups.
• Particles
  • Attached to models to make them more visible.
    • Show the location of cloaked Spies.
• Sounds
  • Increasing the volume of certain effects in order to alert players from a larger distance, such as:
    • Sentry Gun beeps.
    • Spies decloaking.

Due to their nature, these kinds of cheats are not detected by VAC, which only deals with external programs or altered game code. However, there is some protection for servers if the 'sv_pure' console variable [default 0] is set to "1" and a whitelist is created, or to "2", which forces all players on a server to use Team Fortress 2's default content. For more information, please see the Pure Servers article on the VDC.

Installing skins

Skins are typically accompanied by instructions outlining how to install them. However, most are installed somewhere under the directory steam/steamapps/<accountname>/Team Fortress 2/tf.

External links

• GameBanana
• TF2Mods