Testing the Waters of Game Design

Obviously, I enjoy a good game. In particular, I enjoy playing Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike, Star Craft 2, Left 4 Dead 2, or really anything.

On my common server that I play on, 2Fort2Furious (http://forums.2f2f.net/), some of the players have a particle effect around their hats. Today, I had a crazy idea-- create new particles for hats for Team Fortress 2.This has already been done, however I do not know how to do it. So, my engineering reflexes kicked in--- and I Googled it.

Here is some of my preliminary findings from FPSBANANA found here (http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/10318).

How to Test Out Particle Effects on Any Hat (that you own)!

Tools:
GCFScape or GCFExplorer
Notepad, Notepad++ or any other .txt editor
Team Fortress 2
Basic knowledge

Steps:
1. Open up GCFScape and navigate to your Steam\steamapps directory.
2. Open "team fortress 2 content.gcf"
3. Within the GCF, navigate to tf\scripts\items and extract items_game.txt somewhere. Preferably somewhere that's easy to access (like your desktop).
4. Open up items_game.txt with your text editor.
5. Use ctrl + F to find a hat you'd like to make unusual.
6. Add the following line to it:
"attributes"
{
"attach particle effect"
{
"attribute_class" "set_attached_particle"
"value" "10"
}
}
7. Substitute the "10" with the value of the particle you want to be used.

1 = burningplayer_red
2 = burningplayer_flyingbits
3 = particle_nemesis_burst_blue
4 = community_sparkle (given to community contributor's weapons)
5 = halopoint (the glow used on the Cheater's Lament)
6 = superrare_confetti_green (Green Confetti unusual effect)
7 = superrare_confetti_purple (Purple Confetti unusual effect)
8 = superrate_ghosts (Ghosts unusual effect)
9 = superrare_greenenergy (Green Energy unusual effect)
10 = superrare_purpleenergy (Purple Energy unusual effect)
11 = superrare_circling_tf (Circling Logo unusual effect)
12 = superrare_flies (Flies unusual effect)
13 = superrare_burning1 (Burning Flames unusual effect)
14 = superrare_burning2 (Scorching Flames unusual effect)
15 = superrare_plasma1 (Searing Plasma unusual effect)
16 = superrare_plasma2 (Vivid Plasma unusual effect)
17 = superrare_beams1 (Sunbeams unusual effect)
18 = superrare_circling_peacesign (Peace Sign unusual effect)
19 = superrare_circling_hearts (Circling Heart unusual effect)

8. Save the resulting file in your Steam\steamapps\stevethegamerist\team fortress 2\tf\scripts\items directory.

9. Boot up TF2 and try it out! It only works in offline mode, obviously. But you can check out how different hats look like!

10. This can also be used to apply effects to weapons in thirdperson (not on viewmodels)! Awesome!


Also, here are some pictures of the process...