Creating a Syandana

Syandanas are a fun canvas that will allow you to explore any faction’s art style and give our Tenno community an opportunity to find an individual look for their Warframes. While Syandanas offer creators a lot of freedom, there are some technical limitations and tips you’ll need to keep in mind to ensure your design performs well!

Modeling for games is well beyond the scope of these short guides. It certainly isn't rocket science, but it is the type of skill where you need more than a few hours to get the results you want. Luckily we live in a time with fabulous education resources available, and we recommend you pursue independent research on how to get the most out of your tools.

Technical Guidelines:

• Syandanas are intended to fit all Warframes, and the attachment peg should be long enough to fit into both the most convex and the most concave backs.
• Triangle budget: 7,500.
  • Double-sided polygons are not supported!
• Maps Authored at 2048 x 2048.
  • In-game resolution: 1024 x 1024.
• Requires a full set of textures as per our texturing guide here.
  • Non-Metals at roughly 50% luminance, or 128 on a 255 point scale.
  • Metals at roughly 80% luminance, or 186 on a 255 point scale.
• Attachment point needs to be along the upper spine.
  • Tail Syandanas are not possible, sorry.
  • Avoid attaching the Syandana too wide across the shoulders, as that can cause clipping.
• If you want to add a special scrolling texture to your emissives, you need to provide us with the file!
• For custom FX, please make sure it’s set up on a separate mesh that fits within the triangle budget, with its own material set/UV unwrap.
• To get clean deformations you must have even topology in your low poly. You can see in the wireframe of the Uru that it is a very even mesh that allows it to bend fluidly:

Some tips:

• It is very difficult to make a compelling piece that works well with all Warframes. We don’t want to handicap a compelling design, but please do what you can to accommodate the extremes like Saryn’s shoulders.
• To allow the Syandanas to function on more Warframes we have been using a “wedge” shape to give us more flexibility in how scarves connect.
  • This low-key area gives the more complex Warframes a bit more clearance when the team attaches them to their backs.
• The Syandanas need to be able to move plausibly. We don't recommend a lot of complex weight changes that are hard to communicate. i.e. A large metal panel mid-way down a cloth chain transitioning back to cloth is difficult to simulate and it won't likely read well.

Artistically:

• While any Warframe appropriate style is welcome we are not looking for minor variations on the same idea. We are not looking for 50 variations of “regal cloak”. The more compelling and original your idea, the more we will appreciate it.
• Consider the player’s line-of-sight when creating Syandanas to ensure that aiming is not blocked by the piece.
• The Syandana’s design should not wrap around shoulders or necks to prevent clipping.
• Ensure your Syandana includes design elements from its chosen Faction!
• Do not use gold as the metal color (unless allowed in the Faction guidelines).
• Avoid pop culture, copyrighted, or otherwise out-of-universe references, as outlined in our Common Reasons for Rejection.

Checklist:

Prior to submission, please refer to the handy checklist below to make sure your Syandana meets all the TennoGen criteria: