#sfm tutorial

so here you're gonna first load up sfm. make sure the launch option is NOT launch SDK and its just "launch source filmmaker.

black screen flickering when trying to move the camera or pose a character? eeeeasy fix! just copy down what on the pictures and i'll explain!

you want to make sure the "auto hide engine window is OFF, and you want to make sure that when creating your file that you DONT LEAVE THE FRAMRATE AT 24! i recommend the frame rate to be 25-30 since that's what i personally use. and boom! problem should be fixed!

2. "HOW DO I EXPORT MY POSTERS!? 😭😭😭" fear not, its WAY easier than you thought :3

ok so first of all before you even OPEN sfm, is go down to the sidebar, right click sfm and go to properties and it'll give you this popup.

now you see that little textbox there? i want you to copy paste that code into it, which is this ⬇️

-insecure -sfm_resolution 2160 -w 3840 -h 2160 +flex_smooth 0 -sfm_shadowma

now you'll have CRRRRISP, HIIIGH QUALITY posters in 4K resolution :3 beautiful

now once you've done tha, you can go make your poster and whatnot. and once you're done with it and want to export it, you go up and press file, and scroll down to export and select "movie". now dont worry, you're NOT exporting a VIDEO, just bare with me a sec. and once you've pressed that a new box will appear like so.

you're gonna want to press the three dots on the side of the "output path" and then a menu will come up of your files and stuff. you see where it says "ypapa"? on your puter or mac it should be your name. dont press "my computer". you wanna click downloads since thats where you want your posters to end up!

now that you've selected the output path, you're gonna name your file. DONT USE KEYS LIKE "/, (, :,{" since the system doesnt like it and wont let you, and remember to end the name with ".png" since you want it to be a png.

now i want you to copy the way i've set it out here. :) press export or click your enter key and boom! finished product! way to go man!

You see the weird lighting they have on their models?

To fix this, right click their model and choose “Add override material”. It’ll look like nothing happens, but now go to Show in Element Viewer>Model 

Now you will see all these file paths, go and press the plus near the “Materials” one.

It should drop down all the model’s texture paths like this.

Now right click on the first one, the hair. Click Add Attribute>Float

A window will pop up, add this.

Now do that to all her texture paths, except the eyes, eyeshadow and eyeshimmer ones. Those ones are fine the way they are.

Her model will now look like this in lighting.

Do the same thing to Robbie’s textures, except the eyes and eyeshadow.

They should both look like this now.

If all the materials disappear from accidentally dragging them around, like this:

Just go back to the animation set editor and right click the model, then click remove override materials. Click add override materials again and follow the steps from before. It should be all good now. You can use this on any model that has this weird lighting effect in SFM.

You also might notice their clothes look like this in the back, even with lighting off.

Right click and go to render settings.

Turn off ambient occlusion, this will get rid of a bunch of shadows in your session. It will look like this.

You can do it that way, or create a animation set for your camera.

Then slide the SSAOStrength slider all the way to the left. It’ll have the same effect.

The shadows will still be a bit weird, but just add a light and move it around until you get something like this. I had to add a light and move it under them to fix the shadows.

Have fun making renders with them! Luckily Impa’s model doesn’t have problems with shadows, so you don’t have to turn off AO for her if you’re just using her model. (You can still mess with the ambient occlusion sliders in the camera animation set to change how the shadows look if you want to.) Just follow the steps to fix the lighting on her like before and you’re done!

IDK how to add short links, but here’s a link to how you can get their models in SFM from Garry’s mod.

A quick tutorial showing how to fix that pixelated/grainy AO you might get on your SFM renders!

Keep in mind this refers to the exports of your projects, not the project viewport!

Sources:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149692868

part one

sorry these are my first tutorials so... :(