Source Film Maker

So if you're a gamer like me, chances are you're very familiar with Valve's celebrated "Meet the Team" series. For those not in the know, "Meet the Team" is a series of 3D animated short films and biographies built around the characters of the 2006 game TF2.

What's truly incredible about this series is that all of the films are made in the games actual engine, meaning that what we're seeing are the actual characters as they appear in game. Now while this isn't necessarily rare for game developers to do, what IS rare is that Valve actually released that animation software to the general public and then allowing them to do essentially whatever they please with the games in game elements.

While I haven't played around with it too much myself, it seems to be a great tool for learning the very basics of 3D animation. And of course if you're already pretty handy with 3D animation, you can always use it to create content that you wouldn't have made otherwise for fear of wasting to much time on a project that comes across as completely ludicrous.

Silly I know, but in just trying your hand at making something akin to the video above I feel that you can truly learn a lot about the basics, physics, and properties that are needed to seriously pursue a career in animation.

Anyway if you've ever wanted to dip your toes into 3D animation I think that the Source Filmmaker would be a tool well worth your time and effort, and of course because the program is open source there are a wealth of tutorials available on YouTube. If you enjoyed the above film's I'd suggest going on YouTube and searching "SFM FILMS" some people have used these models to create truly gripping films, but then again for every piece of serious content there about a million videos of just unfiltered insanity.