Recently I found a book of video game art (one of my favorite kinds of book) which featured a discussion about the art and artistry of Team Fortress 2. Having read interviews, presentation, and devnotes on much of it, I was already familiar with a lot of what went on, but it did something no resource I've used has: it identified Valve asset artist Eric Kirchmer as specifically responsible for the creation of the sentry gun. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I adore the sentry and I'm always looking out for more sentry gun designs. So I decided to contact Mr. Kirchmer and discuss the designs with him.
TF2 is famous for its incredibly long development cycle, yet I notice that the sketches for the sentry gun available on the TF2 artwork page are very similar to the final model. Did the sentry gun go through any earlier design stages?
TF2 went through lots of iterations over the course of many years, but the design that was established came through in a fairly short period of that development cycle post Half Life2. At that time, Valve was in early development of the Source Film Maker tool and one of first projects was an animated trailer introducing the TF2 team at a pretty early stage of development.
One of the highlighted goals of the video was to show the Engineer deploying a Sentry and have it blast a whole bunch of incoming Soldiers, which was going to be pretty awesome, except we actually didn't have a Sentry yet. So the Sentry design was conceived and realized in about a 2 week stretch leading up to the video launch, and after that we began articulating and designing how its upgrade states would work. Prior to that stage of the TF2 design there was many other incantations of the Sentry design, but I don't really remember those because I don't think I had been born yet ;)
During the long lead-up to the Engineer update, we saw the introduction of the Repair Node and the Combat Mini-sentry. Were any other buildings designed for that update? - Don't know an answer to this one
Were you responsible for designing any of the other iconic technology employed by the mercenaries? If so, which? What was the process there?
The design of the Sentry helped drive the design for the other buildable devices, Dispenser, Teleporter etc and at the time we were developing a visual language for all the TF2 class weapons. Iconically, the HWG Minigun and the Pyros Flamethrower were really successful in supporting the visual style unique to the TF2 universe.
What do you think of the Steam Workshop? As a Valve employee, are you entitled to submit designs through it, or to the profits that might entail if those designs are picked up?
The Steam Workshop is an awesome way for TF2 players to get their designs into the hands of the rest of the community, and make money back from it, and really supports the growth of TF2 as a community driven product.
Your employee bio says you've worked on a number of other games for Valve. Which was your favorite? Are there any game assets you're especially proud of?
My all time favorite project to work on was Half Life2 mostly because it was my first experience working on a video game and it was a wild ride. Also I absolutely loved the game when it was released even after having played it for endless hours in testing before release.
TF2 was also a huge favorite to work on, and a little known design addition added to the game was in the German version of TF2, they can't have blood or gibs when players die, so we put in a bunch of gibs when players explode and it was all this gag stuff like a balloon poodle, an old boot, a tin can, a rubber ducky etc, etc. It was like one of the funniest design projects I've worked on.
So there you have it. A little bit of the design history about the sentry gun, and some cool information about one of the men involved in developing the game we all adore.
TF2 is famous for its incredibly long development cycle, yet I notice that the sketches for the sentry gun available on the TF2 artwork page are very similar to the final model. Did the sentry gun go through any earlier design stages?
TF2 went through lots of iterations over the course of many years, but the design that was established came through in a fairly short period of that development cycle post Half Life2. At that time, Valve was in early development of the Source Film Maker tool and one of first projects was an animated trailer introducing the TF2 team at a pretty early stage of development.
One of the highlighted goals of the video was to show the Engineer deploying a Sentry and have it blast a whole bunch of incoming Soldiers, which was going to be pretty awesome, except we actually didn't have a Sentry yet. So the Sentry design was conceived and realized in about a 2 week stretch leading up to the video launch, and after that we began articulating and designing how its upgrade states would work. Prior to that stage of the TF2 design there was many other incantations of the Sentry design, but I don't really remember those because I don't think I had been born yet ;)
During the long lead-up to the Engineer update, we saw the introduction of the Repair Node and the Combat Mini-sentry. Were any other buildings designed for that update? - Don't know an answer to this one
Were you responsible for designing any of the other iconic technology employed by the mercenaries? If so, which? What was the process there?
The design of the Sentry helped drive the design for the other buildable devices, Dispenser, Teleporter etc and at the time we were developing a visual language for all the TF2 class weapons. Iconically, the HWG Minigun and the Pyros Flamethrower were really successful in supporting the visual style unique to the TF2 universe.
What do you think of the Steam Workshop? As a Valve employee, are you entitled to submit designs through it, or to the profits that might entail if those designs are picked up?
The Steam Workshop is an awesome way for TF2 players to get their designs into the hands of the rest of the community, and make money back from it, and really supports the growth of TF2 as a community driven product.
Your employee bio says you've worked on a number of other games for Valve. Which was your favorite? Are there any game assets you're especially proud of?
My all time favorite project to work on was Half Life2 mostly because it was my first experience working on a video game and it was a wild ride. Also I absolutely loved the game when it was released even after having played it for endless hours in testing before release.
TF2 was also a huge favorite to work on, and a little known design addition added to the game was in the German version of TF2, they can't have blood or gibs when players die, so we put in a bunch of gibs when players explode and it was all this gag stuff like a balloon poodle, an old boot, a tin can, a rubber ducky etc, etc. It was like one of the funniest design projects I've worked on.
So there you have it. A little bit of the design history about the sentry gun, and some cool information about one of the men involved in developing the game we all adore.
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