Team Fortress 2 - Update #4

Good evening everybody. Hope you're doing well. Another week and another update.

So it's editing day 21 of a probable 35 on Team Fortress Bullshittery (part 1). And editing so far is going great. 

• The full episode is cut and all the scenes are in their final positions.
• All text and keyframing is complete. Though it's all waiting QA.
• 6/7 Source Filmmaker cutaway gags are animated. Though all of them need some touch ups. Especially when it comes to lighting.
• Once that's finished, quality assurance begins.

So I fell down a bit of a Source Filmmaker rabbit hole over this weekend.

It turns out that SFM is a lot easier to use than I'd anticipated. And a lot of fun! I think I've just been brutalised by more unforgiving animation suites. It has a host of easy shortcuts for beginners.

For example, one of my favourite features is that it lets you "paint" pre-made animated movement onto the models (like running or jumping). With all the relevant keyframes being placed on all the limbs to demonstrates that "yes, this can be done entirely in SFM". It's not just some pre-baked, motion-captured movement that exists purely as a shop demonstration. Or is only attainable by those at the Pixar level of animator experience.

It even lets you freeze or modify that movement on various limbs, to tweak it to your own design. Reducing the animation time dramatically, as you need only focus on the bits that differ from a pre-made sequence.

Another feature that brings squeals of joy to me is the fact that all of the cosmetic items can simply be loaded and snapped to the models instantly. Fitting damn-near-perfectly on the first try. And automatically parented to the relevant limbs (such as the palm of the hand).

You wouldn't believe how much of a hassle it can be in competing animation suites. Where you spend hours carefully posing, deforming and retexturing clothes that are designed for those specific skeleton meshes. Only to continually find fingers clipping through gloves or elbows visible through the shirts.

Compared to my prior experiences, Source Filmmaker has been a real treat.

Despite me saying that, it hasn't been all smooth sailing. 

Each of the animations I'm working on keep increasing in mechanical complexity. Meaning I have the most complicated animation ahead of me. In the form of cutaway gag 7/7, taking place on the map "pl_pier".

The final part of the video involves a Meet the Medic parody/reference on the drawbridge of the payload map Pier. And getting that map loaded has been an extended headache.

For some reason, Source Filmmaker doesn't think that the map exists. Despite the file clearly being in the right format and in the right place. Subsequent attempted to uncompressed the file got me nowhere. Even when decompiling it all and having it exist in its individual parts.

Some googling of the problem found people who have encountered the same issue over the years. But many of the links I tried to follow are dead. And when I finally did retrieve a working "pl_pier" map it looked like this:

This is because it's missing the dynamic lighting maps that determine how everything should be lit. Resulting in this hellscape.

Eventually following more guides in the direction of the level editor "Hammer". In which I had to deal with more error until I was finally able to get a lit level, but with missing bits:

And from there it's been a gradual tweaking job to identify the missing materials (a process that's still on going). As I'm still working on finding the model for the drawbridge. Along with the yellow crane on the ceiling.

And alas, all of this is ahead of the arduous task of animating the most complicated sequence in the whole bullshittery. One that involves at least 20 characters and about 18 small clips in quick succession.

I've got a lot of work still ahead of me, I'm afraid. I'm hoping it'll look great in the end though.

On a final note - bloopers! Because you don't go through animation work without it sometimes coming out horrible :)

This was one where I mixed up a slider and selected the Medic's jaw, rather than the slider to bring his eyeline to the camera.

And this was one where the walking animation hadn't been done yet. Resulting in a medic that's all like "fuck it, I'ma gonna float".

The work continues :)