
Valve Releases Source Filmmaker Beta - blutonium
http://sourcefilmmaker.com/
======
thenomad
Needless to say, as one of the few pro Machinima filmmakers in the world, I'm
absurdly excited by this. Haven't used Source for years...

The key point about this tech? If you're using your own art assets, it's
usable for commercial movie-making, with no license fee.

Any of the learned HN types know how the Source engine stacks up graphics
algorithms-wise with other engines like Unreal 3 and Crysis? Specifically, how
are their lighting standards, and do they support Global Illumination /
Indirect Lighting stuff, and/or Ambient Occlusion?

Update - apparently they do support SSAO, but on a per-material basis. Not
ideal, but hey. And they do Indirect Lighting, but baked, not dynamic.

~~~
teamonkey
Source isn't on the cutting edge, to put it mildly. It's continually updated
to meet the needs of the games they release, but Valve's priorities are very
different from those of Epic or Crytek.

~~~
rplacd
Case in point: their toolchain remains good ol' Hammer, vis, rad, and bsp.
They're stretching lightmaps to the limit with a toolset from Quake that's
constantly being pushed. God knows how long it'll be before the returns from
refactoring start diminishing... it'd make a good case study, actually.

------
magoghm
I guess this will create a large market for assets which can be used within
Source Filmmaker. Maybe Valve should open an asset store, like Unity's Asset
Store, where you can browse & buy assets directly within Source Filmmaker.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
I think that's part of the idea behind the Steam Workshop.

------
fletchowns
This looks really, really incredible. And they are giving it away for free,
and you can even make money off something you create as long as you don't use
Valve's assets. There's going to be soooo much awesome content that comes out
of this. Way to go Valve, and congratulations to the SFM team!

------
erichocean
Expect to see a lot more of this, this is exactly how we're developing the
first computer-photographed feature film at Fohr.

We use Houdini's digital asset technology to seamlessly develop two version of
each asset: one for the gaming engine, and one for the film-quality renders.
We use the gaming engine to do all of the camera work, set dressing, initial
lighting setups, etc. We can easily create any shot, just like Pixar does with
their animated films. We use this ability to iterate on the story in the
context of the fully edited film as we constantly increase production value in
each scene.

Then, when a scene is solid, we move on to film-quality lighting and
rendering. Our facial capture is done at 120fps with up to four RED Epic
cameras, each with special stereo hardware we've developed (so up to eight 5.5
MP images are captured simultaneously 120 times a second). Along with the mo-
cap data for actors, this allows us to finish the film entirely within the
computer.

We're currently looking into Crytek's engine, and I guess we'll look into
Source Filmmaker now too. It's a great time to be making films with the
computer.

Sadly, the VC industry is completely dry in this area. I wonder what's up with
that?

------
sturadnidge
The world of CounterStrike just took on a whole other level (no pun intended).
Whereas the likes of EA and Blizzard don't even release mod tools for their
big franchises, Valve comes out of left field with things like this.

I look forward to seeing some high quality content in the near future, and
will hopefully create some myself.

~~~
k3n
Have you ever installed the SourceSDK? It's an AMAZING set of tools, all
authored and regularly updated by Valve, and has been around for many years.

<https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SDK_Installation>

Granted, this latest announcement is indeed a considerable leap even from the
offerings of the SDK, since it looks to be aimed at the more non-technical
user.

~~~
mcabral
Its awesome that Valve releases their toolkit and I agree that most of the
tools are pretty decent. Hammer (the level editor) is getting really long in
the tooth though - it hasn't changed much fundamentally since Half Life 1 was
released. And even then, it was pretty much just a third party editor for
Quake (iirc - some of the details may be off).

------
mtgx
I wonder how this compares to CryTek's movie tool:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnXOn7WRCs>

The graphics seem a lot more realistic, but the Source Filmmaker might be
easier to use.

~~~
swalsh
Looking at demos like this really makes me feel inferior. Working on a wpf
signal processing application, i'm having trouble enough to update a line
graph in real time that has "only" 140k points as the user adjusts the inputs.

------
xd
If you're good with speech synthesiser development .. now's the time to shine.

~~~
thenomad
If you can generate credible performances with a speech synth, trust me,
Source Filmmaker is the least of your opportunities. A number of people with a
_lot_ of money would be interested in talking to you...

~~~
xd
Are you the Halo Machinima guy?

~~~
thenomad
Nope, that would be Burnie Burns, I suspect.

I'm the guy who came up with the word in the first place and founded
Machinima.com (amongst other things).

~~~
k3n
Well, he's one of them, though there were 3 guys who were all in on the
genesis: Burnie, Geoff, and Gus. <bragging> I used to work with them (Burnie
actually stepped down as CEO of a tech company to pursue RvsB while I was
still working there). All very cool people. </bragging>

Pretty sweet though that you invented the term, I always wondered how that
came about...

~~~
thenomad
Ah, yes, of course. I know Burnie better than the rest of the RvB team, so I
tend to think of him first, but that's unfair to Geoff and Gus.

------
egypturnash
This looks like fun to play with! Shame it seems to be Windows-only. Hope they
have a Mac version soon!

------
nemo1618
Really excited to see what fan-made stuff comes out of this. The replay editor
is a child's toy in comparison.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
Some YouTubers like Shwiggan have been producing videos with the leaked
version for months now. Here's a video where he demonstrates how he uses the
software:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfRT1OuZ1s>

------
soofy
Very nice and free. I wonder how tedious the process is.

