Source Filmmaker

So, then! A totally free animation tool, made by Valve. Now that it's in open beta, I'm sure that some of you sure are enjoying it.

Have any of ye made something yet?

Animation? Bah, not my interest.

How powerful is it anyway? Is it just another Gary's Mod, or does it have some actually impressive tools inside the kit?

From what Valve says they create all the Meet the Team shots, Dota 2 , Left 4 Dead 2, and several cinematic shots, and several other stuff using purely(?) that thing...

edited 12th Jul '12 5:30:23 AM by onyhow

Garrys Mod and Source Film Maker aren't really comparable. Both can be used to create animations, but for the most part, you have to do a lot of stop-motion for Garry's Mod animations, and it's a game, first and foremost. Source Film Maker is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - a professional 3D animation software that handles animation, lighting, sound, cameras, etc.

Exactly.

edited 12th Jul '12 5:37:35 AM by Cronosonic

Filmmaker really hates my computer. It has horrible graphics, and a weird line going across the screen. Plus, whenever I play 2Fort and exit the spawn, it crashes.

edited 12th Jul '12 8:58:44 AM by ShadowDimentio

For me, it's slow when loading stuff, but otherwise decent, I think.

However, it rejects my efforts to lip-sync acapella Florence And The Machine or Kimbra. For the former, the model's mouth doesn't open half of the time. Any advice on making the lip-syncing more active?

^^It is an open beta, so Valve would appreciate you informing them of your issues.

That means it was originally optimized for whatever arcane brew of hardware/software they made their trailers on, so problems are bound to happen on at least some of the bajillion configurations in the wider world - which includes anything that a given Troper might be using.

It has so much potential, but despite that, I think Sturgeon's Law is going to be in full effect. I have seen a few interesting animations with it, though.

I don't know if I'll make anything myself, given that my computer can't properly run things with a higher demand than Minesweeper.

We need to remake Half Life Full Life Consequences in stunning HD.

Really though I think this is not as big news as you would think...the beta version of this was leaked a long time ago already and the filmmakers already that and develop stable versions of it long before Valve make it official...of course, being officially distributed should make it more noticable...

I swear I will keep this thread active.

Simple yet funny during multiple viewings.

That Spy does one hell of a Me impression.

I wonder if there's a cinematic term for when Heavy walks out of the last shot and reveals the dead engie?

Also, one of my friends uploaded this. Basically, what you would expect out of Gmod in a more random surreal direction.

I wonder how this would translate to in a more original video.

Once I go through my bedtime routine, I'll resume progress on the project I was complaining about in the Team Fortress 2 thread last night. Let's see if manual lip-syncing works.

edited 13th Jul '12 7:56:05 PM by chihuahua0

I'm being more successful with a different track.

Okay, for those who want to do lip-syncing, here's two tips for you guys:

1. Songs with backing instrumentals to vocals work better than songs with only vocals, for some reason.
2. It's better to have the model overpronounce than underpronounce. The more subtle movements won't be picked up as easily, so it's better to get the noticeable ones set up first, and connect the dots.

EDIT: Due to how I aligned the song, I have Heavy saying "kill me" to Sasha instead of "who touched Sasha?". Hmm...

edited 13th Jul '12 9:51:21 PM by chihuahua0

My friend also uploaded this video:

How to apply this to an original video?

@onhhow: I've heard the leaked filmmaker was incredibly unstable.

By the way, I'm creating a playlist of what I think are some of the better or funnier Source Filmmaker videos.

Do you think I missed any of them?

Finally, my dreams of TF2 getting some sort of episodic show is slowly coming true. Now we just need for the clips to be longer than one or two minutes. Hopefully with time these can be accomplished.

edited 14th Jul '12 7:21:01 PM by Psyga315

I could fill a novel with my ideas for things. It's just a damn shame I'm not competent enough to get it done.

By the way, I'm rendering my second project.

Curse you white line. And curse you first camera for not having a "bloomScale" preset.

Double post. Because it's up!

The last few seconds of it got cut off (likely because I had to upload it manually instead of doing it through Source Filmmaker due to errors) but the lip-syncing turned out a little better than I thought it would be, once it was rendered.

Thoughts?

PS: Sorry Germany, you can't view it due to "copyright issues".

edited 14th Jul '12 9:55:17 PM by chihuahua0

Apart from the white line (which is quite distracting, yes, I know you couldn't erase it just comenting on it) it is not bad until the Heavy laughs. Until that, the flow of the video is good but the sudden change in the scene but the song continuing clashes and ruins it. That is my opinion though.

I'll keep that in mind. (I wasn't sure how to deal with the laugh without screwing up the animation).

By the way, here's some of what I think are the best Source Filmmaker videos so far.

They all seem okay, however they still don't compare to my three favorite three TF 2 animations.

3RD: Dictator, from Swiggan

2ND: Slap My..., from antoine35DeLak

1ST: Dance Fortress 2, from thejazzman9475

Seriously. Check these out if you want to see some of the smoothest animating ever.