To create a cosmetic, you need to prepare only two things:

• Your 3D model, in a .obj format
  
• Your textures, in either .png, .jpg, or .bmp format

The workshop editor has 3 types of textures that you can currently input:

• Base Texture
  
• Normal Texture
  
• Emission Mask

There are 2 limits to what can be imported into the workshop:

• The triangle amount of your 3D model must not exceed 20,000. Emphasis on triangles, not polygons!
  
• Your 3D model must not have more than 8 materials.

If you're looking for the 3D model of the player model (Kai) to sculpt on, the official model can be downloaded here[drive.google.com]!

Once you're ready to start, navigate from the Main Menu to Customize > Enter Workshop Editor.

Welcome to the workshop editor!

You can rotate your view by holding Right Mouse Button and moving your mouse, or you can move the camera by holding Middle Mouse Button (the mouse wheel) and moving your mouse.

In the bottom right, you have the ability to change your Field Of View. You can also reset the camera back to its default state, if you found yourself tangled up a little.

When you're ready to import, click on the "Items" button in the top left of the screen.

In this window, you can access your previously published items to update, or create a new item - which you can do by clicking on "New Item".

A file explorer window will pop up - simply navigate to where your 3D model is located, and open it. Congrats, your 3D model is now in! Truly, a monumental task.

Now that your model is imported, you'll notice new tools have popped up - let's go over what each one does.

Transform lets you move, rotate, scale and attach your model.

You can do so by either using the gizmos attached to your model, or by manually changing the values in the window on the right.

For the gizmos, simply select and hold the appropriate gizmo in the direction you wish to manipulate. You can switch out gizmos (move, rotate, scale) using the buttons next to the "Transform" tab.



With the window on the right, you have the ability to better fine tune your transformation, by manually inputting values in each transformation axis.

If you hover over the X/Y/Z icons next to each input field, you'll notice they change into a horizontal arrow that you can interact with. Simply select and hold, and drag your mouse horizontally to increase or decrease the values.



In "Settings", you have "Local Gizmos" and "Uniform Scaling".

Local Gizmos rotate the gizmos to the same angle that your model is currently rotated at - making the gizmos "local" to your model, rather than the fixed global axis. This is helpful if you need to move or rotate your model along an axis that is local to its current rotation.



Uniform Scaling merges the 3 input fields (X/Y/Z) for Scale into one (XYZ), so that if you don't need to scale your model on separate axis, and want to be able to scale the entire model without re-inputting values for each axis - this is it!



Attachment lets you - you guessed it - attach the model to a certain body part of the player.

The available options are:

• Head
  
• Chest
  
• Pelvis
  
• Right/Left Arms
  
• Right/Left Hands
  
• Right/Left Legs

Now it's time to color your model!

Enter the "Materials" tab, and you should have a list of all the materials in your model.

Select the one you want to edit, and you'll see a bunch of options for you to mess with. You can also return to the material list by clicking the arrow in the top left of the window.

PRO TIP: You can right click on any setting button to return it to its default state (and for textures, to remove them).

• Surface Type: Surface type lets you set whether the material is opaque or transparent.
  
  Be mindful of how you use transparent materials - if you have multiple transparent materials that overlap each other, you'll notice graphical issues where one material renders on top of the other, erasing what's behind it. This is a sorting priority issue, which we can not simply expose to users as it may cause other conflicts with the rest of the game.
  
  Therefore, if you have multiple transparent materials, it's best to merge them into one material, or at least not have them overlap with each other.
  
  Another pro tip: Transparent materials are worse for performance than opaque ones, therefore, only use them when necessary.
  
  
• Alpha Clipping: If your base texture has alpha information (transparency), alpha clipping will cut those transparent portions so you can see through them, even in an opaque material.
  
  Threshold sets how transparent should a pixel be in the texture in order to be eligible to be cut out.
  
  
• Double Sided: Makes the material render on both sides of the model's faces (front and back).

• Base Texture: Here you can input your main texture! Simply click the icon box on the right of the setting, and a file explorer will pop up, where you can navigate to and select your texture.
  
  
• Color: Allows you to tint your texture with any color you'd like. Simply click the little circle, and a color picker will pop up.
  
  
• Normal Texture: Here you can input your normal map texture, if you have one. Import it the same way as the base texture.
  
  You can adjust the strength of your normal texture using the "Strength" slider below it.
  
  
• Smoothness: Sets how "smooth" your material is - or in layman's terms, how shiny or reflective your material is.

• Emission Mask: Set a texture for which parts of your material you want to glow. The emission gets multiplied with this texture, so dark portions will not glow at all, while bright portions will glow the brightest!
  
  
• Emission Color: The color of the emission - just like last time, click the circle to pop up a color picker.
  
  Then, use the "Strength" slider below to set how bright should the emission be/how bright it should glow.
  
  
• Multiply With Base: Should the emission also get multiplied with your base texture? This is useful to set if you want the emission to react to brightness levels in your base texture.
  
  If this is off, the emission brightness will be uniform.

This is a simple utility that lets you play different animations on the player model, to test out how your cosmetics look like in different animations, and capture any clipping or anything that looks wrong.

It's also useful for setting a pose for your thumbnail!

Simply select an animation name from the dropdown, and it will auto play! You can also pause or play the animation using the little button next to the dropdown.

This utility takes a cropped screenshot for you to use as a thumbnail for your soon to be published workshop page.

This is what players will see when navigating the workshop, so make sure your cosmetic is not only well within view, but is the focus of the thumbnail and easy to make out. Avoid having too much empty background.

I personally recommend setting a low Field Of View to best achieve this sort of clarity.





Once your shot is ready, press [SPACE] (or w/e your jump bind is) to take the screenshot!

Finally - it is ready. Let's upload!

You'll have to input some essential metadata first:

• Name: The name of your cosmetic. This will be the name of the workshop page.
  
  
• Description: The description for your workshop page. Briefly explain what this cosmetic is, or make up something funny. It's your space to talk about your creation!
  
  
• Thumbnail: This will display the thumbnail you took earlier, *if* you took one. You can also choose to upload a custom thumbnail.
  
  Note that custom thumbnail must be no larger than 1MB in size.
  
  
• Visibility: Should your item be visible publicly, or be hidden? Select the setting that suits you.
  
  Note that when the visibility is set to Friends-Only or Private, other players can not auto-download it. If you wish to keep your cosmetic private, while allowing other people to auto-download it, you'll have to manually visit the workshop page on Steam after your upload, and set the visibility setting to "Unlisted".
  
  The reason it is not possible to do from within the game, is because Steam did not expose that setting in their API.

Now, given that no other issues are present with your model (i.e. exceeds bounds limit - which happens if your model is too big), you can press the "Publish" button, and let it upload.

Once the upload is completed, you can return to the main menu, where you'll be able to wear your newly created cosmetic! Congratulations!

Say, you have a cosmetic set you want to create (something for the head AND chest, or hands, etc).

Since you can attach your model to only one body part, you're probably thinking you have to upload each model separately - but you're wrong!

The workshop editor supports importing multiple models in a single project (up to 8).

Import your first model normally. Then, head to the "Transform" tab, where you'll see a few square buttons sitting next to the window on the right - one labeled with "1", and the other with a "+".



To add a new model, press on the + button, and import your new model - congrats, you've just imported an additional model into your project, which you can set a different body part attachment for!

You can change the currently selected model by pressing the button with the number associated with the order you imported your model at.

You can press the trash can button to remove your currently selected model.

Oh, you can also name your models so it's easier to figure out which is what! The label at the top of the Transform setting window is editable, and will set the name for your currently selected model. This is purely internal for your convenience, and will not be shown in the workshop.

This about covers everything you need to know about the editor!

It was designed for simplicity, convenience, and accessibility even to those who aren't very knowledge about 3D art. Hope this guide helps, and happy designing!