I love Source Filmmaker.

With practice, it is a Promethean fire for creative folks, and should you find a subject you are passionate about, you will rack up the hours in no time and make dreams come to life. And you will need those hours. Here's why: you will learn entirely new skill sets, first and foremost being animation. Actual animation, like the kind used by Valve in their Meet The Videos, and by Pixar and Dreamworks. Skills that have been developed by talented artists since the dawn of the moving picture. I've been using SFM since release -- check it, that's July 2012 - and I'm just now feeling pretty decent about my experience animating. But I've got some silly standards for myself, and people can make hilarious or amazing videos without spending.... uh, the time I have. All copies of SFM do come with high quality models from TF2 and Left 4 Dead 2, complete with selectable pre-made animations so you don't have to start out in an abyss. There are plenty of tutorials online, with lots of folks willing to answer your questions. Outside the safe boundaries of SFM's wonderful community are also helpful places like Facepunch.

Besides animation, you will also learn a lot about lighting and camera work, too. There's so much to pick up on. But it's only if you want to! You get out of SFM exactly what you put into it, because its function is based on ~you.~ The man acts, the machine reacts. If you dive in for a casual experience, well... I'm not sure how much of a casual experience can be had with this program. If you want to have fun tossing ragdolls around, Garry's Mod is for you. But if you have some cool cinematic idea and you want to create a 3D movie but don't quite know where to start, SFM might be the perfect launch pad for your aspirations. It has everthing at your finger tips -- a space to load settings for putting in characters and props (it's like flying around in noclip! It uses WASD keys, spacebar, etc; very natural), tools for animating, all that. The only thing it can't do is model and texture from scratch, but any program that does can convert to SFM. Go to Steam Workshop and you'll find new content pretty much every day from loads of people! Maps, models, sounds, the works.

So, wrapping up, Valve has supported its content-creating fans since forever. I've been there since HL1, modding sounds and textures, making maps, and it's been such a wonderfully healthy experience for me. Probably no other big company would ever release an internal tool of this kind and keep it maintained, and allow so much flexibility for its users. Source Filmmaker is a beacon of virtual cinema. So look ahead, and rock it hard!

I love Source Filmmaker. With practice, it is a Promethean fire for creative folks, and should you find a subject you are passionate about, you will rack up the hours in no time and make dreams come to life. And you will need those hours. Here's why: you will learn entirely new skill sets, first and foremost being animation. Actual animation, like the kind used by Valve in their Meet The Videos, and by Pixar and Dreamworks. Skills that have been developed by talented artists since the dawn of the moving picture. I've been using SFM since release -- check it, that's July 2012 - and I'm just now feeling pretty decent about my experience animating. But I've got some silly standards for myself, and people can make hilarious or amazing videos without spending.... uh, the time I have. All copies of SFM do come with high quality models from TF2 and Left 4 Dead 2, complete with selectable pre-made animations so you don't have to start out in an abyss. There are plenty of tutorials online, with lots of folks willing to answer your questions. Outside the safe boundaries of SFM's wonderful community are also helpful places like Facepunch. Besides animation, you will also learn a lot about lighting and camera work, too. There's so much to pick up on. But it's only if you want to! You get out of SFM exactly what you put into it, because its function is based on ~you.~ The man acts, the machine reacts. If you dive in for a casual experience, well... I'm not sure how much of a casual experience can be had with this program. If you want to have fun tossing ragdolls around, Garry's Mod is for you. But if you have some cool cinematic idea and you want to create a 3D movie but don't quite know where to start, SFM might be the perfect launch pad for your aspirations. It has everthing at your finger tips -- a space to load settings for putting in characters and props (it's like flying around in noclip! It uses WASD keys, spacebar, etc; very natural), tools for animating, all that. The only thing it can't do is model and texture from scratch, but any program that does can convert to SFM. Go to Steam Workshop and you'll find new content pretty much every day from loads of people! Maps, models, sounds, the works. So, wrapping up, Valve has supported its content-creating fans since forever. I've been there since HL1, modding sounds and textures, making maps, and it's been such a wonderfully healthy experience for me. Probably no other big company would ever release an internal tool of this kind and keep it maintained, and allow so much flexibility for its users. Source Filmmaker is a beacon of virtual cinema. So look ahead, and rock it hard!