6 ms·

Valve Releases Source Filmmaker Beta

292 points by blutonium 14y ago

thenomad 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
  - kenrikm 14y ago
    But you know what, it's always rock solid and will run on a budget rig while still looking good. That can't be said for Crytek stuff which will not run on even the most advanced hardware at max settings. I like getting good frame rates and looking good.
  - rplacd 14y ago
    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.
xd 14y ago
If you're good with speech synthesiser development .. now's the time to shine.
- thenomad 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    Are you the Halo Machinima guy?
    - thenomad 14y ago
      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 14y ago
        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 14y ago
        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.
nemo1618 14y ago
Really excited to see what fan-made stuff comes out of this. The replay editor is a child's toy in comparison.
- thenomad 14y ago
  It's not exactly fan-made, but I'll be evaluating it for our current performance capture projects tomorrow/Friday. VERY excited.
- BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
  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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfRT1OuZ1s
sturadnidge 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 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 14y ago
    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).
fletchowns 14y ago
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!
magoghm 14y ago
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 14y ago
  I think that's part of the idea behind the Steam Workshop.
soofy 14y ago
Very nice and free. I wonder how tedious the process is.
egypturnash 14y ago
This looks like fun to play with! Shame it seems to be Windows-only. Hope they have a Mac version soon!
mtgx 14y ago
I wonder how this compares to CryTek's movie tool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnXOn7WRCs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnXOn7WRCs The graphics seem a lot more realistic, but the Source Filmmaker might be easier to use.
- swalsh 14y ago
  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.
erichocean 14y ago
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?

292 points by blutonium 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.
- kenrikm 14y ago
  But you know what, it's always rock solid and will run on a budget rig while still looking good. That can't be said for Crytek stuff which will not run on even the most advanced hardware at max settings. I like getting good frame rates and looking good.
- rplacd 14y ago
  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.

xd 14y ago

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

thenomad 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Are you the Halo Machinima guy?
  - thenomad 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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 14y ago
        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.

nemo1618 14y ago

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

thenomad 14y ago
It's not exactly fan-made, but I'll be evaluating it for our current performance capture projects tomorrow/Friday. VERY excited.
BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfRT1OuZ1s

sturadnidge 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 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 14y ago
  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).

fletchowns 14y ago

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!

magoghm 14y ago

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 14y ago
I think that's part of the idea behind the Steam Workshop.

soofy 14y ago

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

egypturnash 14y ago

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

mtgx 14y ago

I wonder how this compares to CryTek's movie tool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnXOn7WRCs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnXOn7WRCs The graphics seem a lot more realistic, but the Source Filmmaker might be easier to use.

swalsh 14y ago
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.

erichocean 14y ago

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?