Oh wait, maybe I am...
So with all of this hoopla over the other developers and their dev diaries I decided to bunker down and give you all an idea of what it is that I actually do. I've had a few people ask "What
IS a
technical assistance director" and to be honest, I still don't know- Stieffers gave me a purposely ambiguous name because at the time I hadn't really settled into a niche.
Now that some time has passed and I've repeatedly scoffed at trying to learn ANYthing 3d I'm just gonna call my self a 2d artist. (I did look into 4-D art but the physics of it confused me)
Before I get into it lets take a look at some of the technology that the graphics of SF takes advantage of in the Source engine.
For something simple, take the SF block there actually is more going on then it seems.
For this block, there is a basic image called a Diffuse map (commonly just called the texture) which defines the colors and the general look of the block. (I.e. there is a white logo and a blue background as well as the grey borders.
Here's an example of a (terrible) modification of JUST the Diffuse on the shotgun:
LINK
There is also another "picture" called a
normal map applied which the source engine uses to simulate depth on our model. Here's an early one I did for SF 1.9.1:

(190 version then mine)
I'll touch upon this a bit more later.
And finally there are two additional maps which aren't used on the Blocks but will be taken advantage of when I continue this diary. I'll explain what those are and what they do as I get to it.
Well that was long winded and I'm making it that way because honestly- My job is not that huge of a deal, I'm just trying to make something very boring just a bit interesting- so hang around hopefully it'll get a bit more interesting!
So for this diary I'm going to add some extra maps to the pistol that Ficwill Made in his own previous diary. I'll post more as I get the stuff all prepared!