Team Fortress 2 - Update #5

Good evening everyone. And a late Merry Christmas! Hope you've all had a lovely one :)

So it's the start of week 6 (of 7) on this behemoth of a bullshittery. And here's how things are going.

For the last week I've been working on animation 7/7, which makes up the closing gag of this episode. It's more or less dominated the 5th week. I've even been streaming some of that effort under the software category on Twitch, for those curious.

Blimey it's proving to challenging. Being composed of 18 individual clips, that often have the shot before/after in the background. Making it much more complex than the others.

As an example of the process, this is "clip 9" in the sequence. Starting off first with the camera in a pre-visualised state:

Then the models were roughly positioned and given some crude motion. With automatically generated lip sync (which is less than convincing) for the sentences "are you sure this will work" and "I have no idea".

Then some more finalised manual animation is provided to the sentences. Also note the changing lighting (more on that in a moment).

Further experiments with the lighting to try and replicate the look of TF2 in 2021:

Near final lighting, which better resembles the "washed out" grey look of modern Team Fortress. Achieved with a combination of spotlights and camera tweaks.

So really, each of the scenes require gradual edits and improvements - along with the animation. With each iteration seeing gradual changes and often presenting their own unique difficulties.  Be they lights flashing through walls, or spotlights that are too bright or too dim. Or particle effects that need to start and stop at the right moments, etc.

Meaning that each individual clip ends up as a multi hour process.

I'm pleased that, as expected, this is a very well travelled path. And many other animators before me have faced these problems and fixed them. Leaving plenty of forum breadcrumbs to follow when I get stuck.

Lighting challenge:

So probably the biggest thing to talk about has been the small mountain to climb regarding the map called "pl_pier". Which is where the funny moments occurred in our 2021 game.

Because according to Source Filmmaker - pl_pier doesn't exist.

This is because it's compressed. Therefore SFM couldn't read it. So first I had to decompile it, then recompile a custom version using the level editor "Hammer". An almost absurdly unwieldly program that reminds me of the level editor I used to use with the original Half Life back in 1999.

From there, I was able to compile a custom version of pl_pier, with a very dodgy looking lightmap, complete with lights glowing through walls. Which does a pretty bad job of making the level appear as it does today.

Along with not actually putting the props in their correct positions, notable the bridge that is hoisted into position by the crane.

So with some prop placing and experimentation, I started trying to make the lighting match modern Team Fortress 2. Using spotlights and tweaking various properties, such as volumetric lighting and falloff.

But alas, it was a difficult process. The glowing areas were too glowy and the shadows almost pitch black.

So my next idea was to go back to the hammer editor and remove all lights, then recompile again. Giving me a blank canvas from which to do the lighting of the room myself.

From there I started using the spotlights, placing them in the exact positions as shown from various reference screenshots. And replicating all of the light fixtures mounted in the ceiling.

Still no good. I merely made a moody looking version of TF2. Nothing like the game itself. Which is problematic, because the scene needs to shift from real footage, to SFM, near seamlessly.

So my next experiment involved bringing the default light map back. But supporting it with bonus spotlights in places that seemed too dark.

But I only succeeded in making the light areas too shiny. With the colour pallet still being very wrong. And all the dark areas of shadow seeming oppressive.

Eventual experiments in volumetric lighting had me get closer. Being able to replicate the blue-ish tint that's present in the level.

But the real breakthrough came when I sought help on the SFM subreddit. And I was told that the camera itself has numerous colour correcting options. And is much more relevant than the lighting.

This final revelation proved to be the breakthrough, allowing me to replicate modern TF2. And I may even go further by messing with the colours of the .mp4 file in post.

So for now, what I need to do is continue working on this animation 7/7. With most of it done, except for the final two clips. And start the process of putting the whole video through quality assurance.

The project is definitely entering the final stages. Mostly polish and going through nightly test renders for review in the morning. Thank you for your patience folks!

TL;DR - Animation 7/7 still to finish. But sporadic quality-assurance on the whole video begins.