Team Fortress 2/Unused Taunts and Animations

This is a sub-page of Team Fortress 2.

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All Classes

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: This video plus all of the grenade nonsense complicates the second bullet point a lot. Note(s) for investigations: Grenades were cut way early on in development so nothing throwing-animation-related would be for the original grenade stuff. There were some throwable weapons and new grenades that were found in staging build code that Valve tested. As well, bread textures are located in materials/models/weapons, so make of that what you will. Bread could have been intended to be a throwable. Far as anyone can tell, the throwing animations were for the bread, and if memory serves, were added roughly around the same time as the bread, but they could've easily been used for any of the throwables in the future as well. Such is the nature of the beast. Four of the weapon viewmodels in models/weapons/v_models have unused holster animations, leftovers from when the scrapped Grenades were being tested. The Scouts bat is one such viewmodel, but the bat phases into the Scouts arm in the current builds model. If you obtain the June 25th, 2007 proto however, the bat viewmodel in that build has a fully functional holster animation. These animations need to be documented.

All classes minus Soldier and Heavy had a taunt named taunt_loot. The taunt depicted the characters taking something out of a chest or box. They are quite rough, especially the Engineer's, which is sped up a bit. As of the Gun Mettle update, the animations were removed entirely, but can still be found in Source Filmmaker under "Animation Sequences" for the characters that have this taunt.

All classes have animations for throwing something in their c_arms models, and are presumably used for the Water Balloon weapons although throwable bread was a possibility as well. Other throwable weapons and new grenades were experimented with by Valve, so it's anyone's guess as to what the animations were actually for. As well, the spell animations and the Scout's and Sniper's throwing animations are different.

Animations for death by fire are present for all classes excluding Pyro. Some seem more fleshed out than others, and it's likely they were removed due to how distracting they would have been.

Scout

• taunt_come_and_get_me has him gyrating his body in an extremely...taunting way.

Soldier

• show1 had him stand up straight, cross his arms, and then extend them to assumedly show something off. It was removed entirely some time after May 2012.

• taunt_slit_throat which has him make a slitting throat gesture.

• taunt_gimmie_20 which has him point forward and then point to the ground. Both taunt_slit_throat and taunt_gimmie_20 are still in Soldier's animation files, but were dummied out some time after November 2013.

• The aptly named test has Soldier standing somewhat awkwardly, assumedly loading two rockets into his rocket launcher.

Pyro

• taunt_sit had him sit down enthusiastically and then jump back up, possibly a reference to him sitting in the True Meaning comic (or the other way around). The sequence is still in the Pyro's animation files, but has been dummied out some time after November 2013.

(Source: TF2 Wiki (GIF))

Demoman

• An unnamed taunt that had him raise his weapon triumphantly in the air. It was removed entirely some time after November 2013. Later during the 2023 gigaleaks, we learned that the taunt is called taunt_battlecry_secondary

Heavy

• taunt_big_gorilla had him put down his minigun and pound his chest like, predictably, a gorilla. The animation was removed entirely on an unknown date.

(Source: TF2 Wiki)

• show1 had him boisterously lean back before showing off something. It was removed entirely some time after May 2012 alongside Soldier's equivalent.

Engineer

• An unnamed taunt where he would take out his guitar and play a long tune on it. Possibly an early version of the Frontier Justice taunt kill. The animation was removed entirely on an unknown date. In the 2023 gigaleak, it's name was revealed to be taunt08.

(Source: TF2 Wiki)

• taunt10 has the Engineer stumble around for a few seconds before assumedly puking. Originally meant to be used as a taunt for the Brundle Bet set, as indicated by the internal suffix it has in the repository leak, taunt10_halloween.

• taunt_test had him put down his shotgun and tap his hardhat. It was removed entirely on an unknown date and was probably never intended to be used based on the name.

(Source: TF2 Wiki)

• Engineer's c_arms model has four animations for a potential Engineer revolver, all with the simple prefix revolver. Internally dated September 15th 2014, this was originally planned for the scrapped Spy vs. Engineer War update.

Sniper

To do: Check when the SMG animations were removed (A good place to look would be the Official TF2 Wiki), as well as check what the actual sequence names were called. In the 2023 gigaleak, they were called "hogan_smg", but they could've been different back then.

taunt_saxophone was fairly similar to the used Killer Solo taunt's animation with slight differences and a little jump at the end. It was used in the Expiration Date short, so they may have planned to reuse that animation, but ultimately altered it. This taunt was removed from the files some time after November 2013.

• During the Australian Christmas Update in 2011, 4 animations related to a new SMG were added. They were removed at an unknown date and the .qc files for the animations later showed up in the 2023 gigaleak.

• Sniper's c_arms model has four unused animations with the prefix rifrevolver, possibly meant for the High Noon community weapon, which has not been put in the game as of writing. Attempting to view them in Half-Life Model Viewer will crash the program. In 2022, their entries were removed from the model's .qc file to fix an issue with Sniper eating his gun.
  • In the 2023 gigaleak, the animations for this, as well as the .qc file for the animations, were included. With a bit of work, you can restore them. The idle animation included was broken, causing the Sniper's right hand to jitter in place on a loop. It also has two separate reload animations, alluding to the fact that the weapon that it's commonly thought to be based off of was intended to have a clip.

Spy

• Spy's c_arms model contains four unused animations with the prefix c_dart_gun, intended for the Intruder (Dart Gun/DNA Gun). The animations were added to the Spy's c_arms model in the June 18th, 2014 patch (Love and War update), but are internally dated to March 14th, 2014. For some reason, Spy's left hand will twitch a bit at the end of the idle animation.

Robots

• All robot classes minus Engineer have unique animations for dying from headshots and/or being backstabbed. The Engineer's animations for these are the same as its human counterpart (down to having the unused burning animation present), and all robots in-game will simply ragdoll when killed in these ways.

Robot Demoman

• The Demoman Bot has unused animations related to the Stickybomb Launcher. It is unknown how it would be used, but they were likely for robots who wielded the Stickybomb launcher and its associated variants.

Unused Promotional Poses

The following poses were used in promotional images, but never actually used in-game. The animations have been removed from the TF2 player model animation .MDL's, but can still be found in the Source Filmmaker animation .MDL's.

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  Scout promotional pose, demonstrating the infamous "Crazy Legs" glitch. Used in the blog post Better Late Than Never.

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  The Soldier, prepared for war. Used in the WAR! Soldier page.A similar pose can also be seen as an easter egg in sd_doomsday and cp_foundry.

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  The Soldier, triumphing over the Demoman to earn the Gunboats. Used in the WAR! Victory page.

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  The Soldier poses with his new weapon, the Direct Hit, which is missing from its raw model shot. Used in the WAR! Soldier page.

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  The Soldier poses with an active Buff Banner. Used in the WAR! Soldier page.

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  Unused. Assumed to have been for the Equalizer's section on the WAR! Soldier page, or as a 'Loss' pose on the WAR! Victory page if the Soldier had lost the battle. If it's the former, then it was likely scrapped due to obvious model flaws.

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  The Demoman gestures to the sky in victory. Would have been used in the WAR! Victory page if the Demoman had won the war.

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  The Demoman looks down, defeated. The bottle he is clutching in his right hand is missing from the raw shot. Used in the WAR! Victory page.

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  The Demoman relaxes, holding his Scottish Resistance loosely. Used in the WAR! Demoman page.

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  The Demoman holds his Eyelander high, and prepares to decapitate an enemy. Apart from the facial expression, this pose matches the taunt animation for the Eyelander. Used in the WAR! Demoman page.

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  The Heavy shows love to his minigun Sasha. This pose, or possibly a similar pose, was used for the VI Day image posted on the official blog with the conclusion of the WAR! Update.