#headhacking

Hexing old items in the old TF2 Workshop format/just models are taught here (Gamebanana) and here (Facepunch). There is so much room for error so make backups.

Hexing new items in the new TF2 Workshop format are taught here by none other than tf2-daesdemona. It is about ten times easier than the above method but make backups anyway if you’re uncertain about things.

Revzin’s Elizabeth HWM source files have some pretty neat reading on how HWM models function and how to build them. If you want to go further, I’ve had it recommended for me to read so it must be good. (Haven’t had time yet.)

Headhacking is weird, I haven’t found a precise tutorial yet but here’s what I usually do. Over here is scurvyorangesfm's tutorial on headhacking. 

This is a really weird concept for me that I’m trying to figure out to this day, because if you resize things before you lock things onto them, SFM does this thing where it also resizes the thing you’re trying to lock on. At this point, I’m not sure there’s a proper way doing it within SFM.

Let’s say I’m trying to put Miss Pauling’s head onto a Nude Scout Mom’s body like every other 18+ artist right now since that’s arguably the most well-modelled nude female body. If I already scaled down Scoutma’s head to 0, that means Miss Pauling’s head will also shrink no matter what. There’s two ways I’ve figured out so far:

If you lock on rootTransform, bip_head or bip_neck to each other, just scale down the Body’s head or neck to .01. Then punch in 1 for rescaling your Head’s bip_neck or bip_head and it should go back to default size. (Try this with a regular model from TF2 with Pte Jack’s HWM heads for the best example of this. Your neck might be a little weird.)

I saw this one in a pony SFM tutorial and I think I find this one a little easier to deal with. Shrink the bip_head down of your Body. Shrink your Head’s bip_pelvis down to .01 and attach everything as is, but attach Body’s bip_neck to bip_pelvis. This doesn’t cause auto-rescale because the bones don’t match. Once locked on, rescale Head’s bip_head to 1.