January 25, 2010 - TF2 Team

In the latest update, we've finally fixed the Double Crouch Jump buga longstanding issue involving Scout not being able to double crouch jump without looking like his legs are made of raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel:







Throughout Team Fortress 2's years-long release and update cycle, many people have asked us, "Seriously, how could you guys not have fixed that yet?" The majority of these queries are directed to TF2 animator Matthew Russell, who is technically responsible for fixing this kind of thing, and most of them pull no punches. "Is it because Matthew Russell is too stupid to fix it? Why would Valve even hire someone with a horseshoe-shaped divot in their skull?" is an email we see a lot. "Does Matthew Russell have a disease that makes him lazy?" is another popular one. An astonishing number of them are simply a .jpeg of Google Maps with Matt's house ominously circled. The rest could be summed up as a long, unbroken string of expletives and grammatically questionable racial slurs.



What a lot of people don't know is that this "bug" isn't a bug at all, but rather an embarrassing result of the degenerative leg disease our motion capture actor, Del Bluskin, has bravely endured for over a decade now, which has turned the lower half of his skeleton into something that looks like two raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel. To be honest, Del's been a part of the Valve family for so long, we just didn't have the heart to fire him simply because his ailment had rendered him grossly incompetent at his own job. To be even more honest, we didn't have the heart to engage in a long verbal sparring match with Valve's legal team, who told us that under no circumstances could we fire Del.



Luckily, things have a funny way of working themselves out for the best. Del was hit by a bus this morning, and our new mocap guy, Phil, is a sharp, enthusiastic go-getter with a functioning skeleton. Jump forward an hour, and here we are with an upgrade that finally addresses the Double Crouch Jump bug that has long plagued the Scout-playing faithful. Enjoy, and in the words of animator Matthew Russell, "Anyone wants me, I'm gonna snag a couple z's in the server room. If Newell asks, one of my kids has chicken pox again."



In non-crazy-legs-related news, our friends at TF2maps.net have just finished up their Swamp Theme expansion. Head on over and download it today.

