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Hi Tenno,
The holidays are upon us, so we felt it was appropriate to continue the tradition of announcing the first TennoGen deadline of 2021 before the year comes to a close. This should hopefully allow our artists plenty of time to balance (safely) seeing their families while also putting the finishing touches on their creations!
For this round, we’ll be looking at new content types: more landing crafts, melee weapons, and shoulder armor!
Without further ado, the TennoGen Round 20 deadline is February 15, 2021 at 2pm ET! After that, we will be reviewing all items submitted or updated after July 20th, 2020.
If you have an item that has been in the workshop for a significant amount of time (over a year), we strongly recommend resubmitting to avoid any chance of us missing the updated version. In general, having a fresh submission for items uploaded before July 20th is always recommended to ensure it gets reviewed, but we do our best to catch as many updated pieces as we can.
There are some texture file name changes and general texture optimization changes that should be considered in your pieces prior to submission.
Texture Name Changes:
Tintmasks should be renamed from “FilenameTintMask_d” to “Filename_t”.
The TennoGen tool exporter was updated in early November to export Tintmasks with this file name format, but we recommend double checking just to be safe! If you have items exported before November 5 2020, you will have to rename the Tintmask files prior to the submission deadline.
Texture Optimization:
With Update 29.3.1, we released part two of our Great Ensmallening, which involved changes to our texture compression. This affects TennoGen artists, and we want your pieces to perform the best that they can. As a result, we are offering the following recommendations to include in your workflow (if they do not exist already):
- Test all of your textures at in-game resolution, and make sure you test them together at this resolution. You can see final resolution numbers in the Final Submission Checklist available here or in the file download.
- Optimize your UVs to get the most out of your limited resolution. Good UV mapping practices go a long way in helping your piece look its best, so check out online resources on how to improve this important skill.
- Avoid adding micro-details to your normal maps. These can get incredibly busy and messy once they are added in-game. If you want to add micro-details to your piece, you can request that we use our own internal atlas detail in your submission’s readme document.
Our texture guide has been updated to include these tips (and the naming convention changes) for future creators!
Additionally, we are requiring the inclusion of one clearly marked in-game resolution screenshot of the full item for your submissions to ensure that artists and the community have a better idea of what the item will look like if it makes it into Warframe! All screenshot guidelines can be found below:
SpoilerAll creations must be submitted with the following screenshot guidelines, so we can properly judge your creation. We reserve the right to reject items without proper screenshots, due to our inability to properly review your item.
- Please make sure to include a tint breakdown.
- Have at least one well-lit screenshot on a 50% grey background and uncoloured lighting.
- For Skins and Syandanas, make sure the colouring in your screenshots matches the colouring in the files you uploaded.
- For Warframe Alt-Helmets, please be sure to match the base colours of the Warframe in your files and in one of the screenshots!
- Make sure your screenshots are all up to date! If you have comparison shots for previous versions, please indicate which screenshots are of the current iteration -- aka the ones we should be evaluating!
- NEW: Include one full view screenshot of your creation at in-game resolution that is clearly marked (ex: text in the corner that says “IN-GAME RESOLUTION”). Just the front view is fine, but if you want to include multiple angles, that is more than welcome.
- Finally, provide both back, front and side views of your creation so we can see the whole picture. These views should not be partial -- we need to see the FULL item from all sides.
That's about it! Lots to go over this time, but it’s all in the name of making TennoGen items the best they can be.
Happy creating, Tenno! 
