Creating Shoulder Armor Pieces

Armor Pieces are a great entry point to the TennoGen program. Shoulder pieces allow players to break up their Warframe’s silhouette and allow creators to explore different styles and factions within the game’s universe. Since these armor pieces are placed in highly mobile areas on our characters, there are important guidelines and technical limitations you will need to keep in mind!

Technical Guidelines

Shoulder Armor Pieces are intended to fit all Warframes, and the attachment peg should be long enough to fit into all arm shapes. It may be tempting to design a piece that fits closely to the arm, but with the diverse Warframe designs, a more generic attachment style is recommended to ensure it works on everyone!

There are general size boundaries that need to be respected to reduce clipping and blocking vision while aiming. Any pieces that bend over the shoulder towards the neck can lead to clipping. If your armor extends past the shoulder, make sure it protrudes upwards or outwards, not towards the Warframe’s neck.

You are welcome to push the envelope at your own risk. We reserve the right to reject pieces that unnecessarily go beyond the boundaries. Asymmetrical designs are welcome, but both shoulders share the same texture set, so plan accordingly if you go this route.

Technical Specifications

• Triangle budget: 5,000 total for both pieces
  • Shoulder Armor submissions must include an armor piece for each shoulder.
• Maps Authored at 1024 x 1024.
  • In-game resolution: 512 x 512.
• Requires one full set of textures (both shoulders share the same texture set) 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 arm.
  • Shoulder pieces should be submitted at 0,0,0 (world center) and oriented accordingly.
• Please adhere to our file naming convention: ShoulderR.fbx and ShoulderL.fbx.
• 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.

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 "cool metal spikes"; the more compelling and original your idea, the more we will appreciate it.
• Like all other TennoGen pieces, Armor pieces must be based on a Faction.
  • We recommend looking at other armor pieces in that Faction for further inspiration, and to ensure you’re bringing a fresh idea to the game!
  • Ensure your armor piece includes design elements from its chosen Faction.
• Do not use gold as the metal color (unless allowed in the Faction guidelines).
• Keep the construction of this piece in mind — how would it have been made? How do the various elements work together?
  • Simple panels and “toothpaste-y” swirls do not meet the detail level you’d see in-game.
  • Complex layers of materials are necessary to make this item fit in-universe.
  • Here’s an example of this complexity, when applied to Tenno metal details.
    https://imgur.com/BlBV8hc
• 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 Armour Piece meets all the TennoGen criteria: