SFM Tips and Tricks

[TerabyteS]

[IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2951174/sfm.png[/IMG]

[highlight]############### DISCLAIMER

I won't explain how to get the FilmMaker as it is warez hence it is illegal. Please notice that no one except you take responsibility for downloading said illegal content. Do it at your own risk.

###############[/highlight]
[B]
3D video made with the filmmaker: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48WgEtCfSwo[/url]
[/B]
[B]-Crashes[/B]
If your FilmMaker crashes when the server is loaded (you see the blackboard, but right after it blocks), go to the Team Fortress 2\tf folder and delete motd.txt. If there's a file named textwindow_temp.html, delete that too.

[B]Beginner tutorial:[/B]
[QUOTE]
[B]-How to start SFM:[/B]
First of all be sure to have installed all the patches and the tools. Tools go in the bin/tools folder.
Run hl2.exe first. Let it load completely, then exit.
Make a shortcut to hl2.exe. Right click and open the properties. In the target line, go to the end and add:

-game tf -tools -console -applaunch 440 -window -noborder -novid

Press OK and use the shortcut to start the game.
You are free to delete RUN_TF2.exe as it is of no use for your purposes.

[B]-How to load a map to work on:[/b]
Press:

File -> Load map...     Ctrl+L

or use the Ctrl+L key shortcut.
A window will appear at the center of the screen. Select your map from the list at the bottom, click on it and press Open.
Wait for the map to load. Once it's done you'll see the usual TF2 blackboard.

[B]-How to get in position:[/B]
First off, you wanna close the welcome board.
To do so, press F10 to change the mode to Game control, and F11 to toggle fullscreen. Select your team and class, and position your character where you'd like to start recording.
If you want to record a swarm of characters, it's useful to position yourself behind a wall, where the camera can't see you, as that will serve as a start point for every instance you're going to record of yourself.
After you're in the right position, press F10 and F11 again in order to go back to the editing window.

[B]-How to record a track[/B]
To record a track, press the record button (Red circle), edit the settings to your liking and press Record.
You will hear four beeping sounds. The last one will tell you when the recording will start.
Record your action, and when you're done press Esc to go back to editing mode.
The recording will stop by itself.
Now you can scrub trough the recorded track and cut the parts you don't like.

[B]-How to record the later tracks.[/B]
After you recorded the first track, you may want to take another character and start acting with it. Press F10 and F11 again to get in Game Mode, and change your class or your team.
While you explore the map you'll notice ammo packs and cap points are doubled, and one of them is rotating, while the other is standing still. Since you don't want this bad effect to appear in your final track, you may want to delete the entities.
For ammo packs and health packs, just put your crossair over them and, in console, type:

ent_remove

and press Enter. The rotating entity will disappear, and the copy from the old recording will remain. You'll have to repeat this for every recording.
You can't use ent_remove on Capture Points, because the game would crash.
Point your crossair at the hologram (preferably the top) and type in console:

ent_fire !picker hidemodel

The CP should vanish. If it reappears in the next recordings, just repeat.

[U]To make multiple instances of yourself, just repeat the above steps.[/U]

Once you're done with the instances, follow the below steps.

[B]-How to place a camera[/B]
To place a camera, move your mouse over the track in the timeline, right click and select Set New Camera. Now, with no need for F10 and F11, just use your wasd keys and your mouse (click and drag on the view window) to move the camera and place it in a convenient position.

[B]-Watch your result[/B]
Now press the Play button and watch the final result till the end. You'll probably want to cut out a piece at the end. To do so, position your mouse at the end of the clip and it should take a "]" shape. Click and drag to the desired endpoint of the track.

[B]-How to render to a video[/B]
To render a video, press File and Export video. Save it if prompted, then change the folder where it will save the video and make a folder just for it. Then you can select if to save .tgas (it's better) or .avi. If you save tgas you can put them together using vdub.

Enjoy!
[/quote]

Here below are other users' tips. Please post your own!

[QUOTE]
[highlight][U][B]Users' tips:[/B][/U][/highlight]

[B]-Fearlezz:[/B]
To block the timer and prevent the announcer from speaking, or the round from ending, use the command

ent_fire team_round_timer pause

[B]-Pandamobile[/B]
Watch his video tutorial for better learning:
[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsw-J_vS-Dg[/hd][/QUOTE]

[B]-thrawn2787[/B]
Video tutorial for multiple cameras:
[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HD5ZBINQg[/hd]

[Xeloo]

How do you guys change camera's? What I do is, I record everything first, copy paste the shot, shorten it and set new camera over and over. It's pretty stupid because when I decide to change something I have to change it like 10 times.

[TerabyteS]

[QUOTE=Xeloo;19492139]How do you guys change camera's? What I do is, I record everything first, copy paste the shot, shorten it and set new camera over and over. It's pretty stupid because when I decide to change something I have to change it like 10 times.[/QUOTE]

If someone points this out I'll add this to OP

[Fearlezz]

ent_fire team_round_timer pause

[Pandamobile]

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsw-J_vS-Dg[/hd]

[Eight Bit]

You one-uped terabytes. Dick.

[thrawn2787]

What fecking codec do you use? My videos don't work (see other thread). I try just using uncompressed avi frames but... well yeah... it fails... I'll upload a youtube video

[TerabyteS]

[QUOTE=Pandamobile;19492844][hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsw-J_vS-Dg[/hd][/QUOTE]

Added to OP, thanks.

[Ghosevil]

[QUOTE=Pandamobile;19492844][hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsw-J_vS-Dg[/hd][/QUOTE]

Thread is now hijacked and at the mercy of Panda.

[Sirdangolot5]

Is good!

[Xeloo]

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;19493068]What fecking codec do you use? My videos don't work (see other thread). I try just using uncompressed avi frames but... well yeah... it fails... I'll upload a youtube video[/QUOTE]

Export as .wav and .tga and open and save it with VirtualDub. Works great for me except sometimes the sound is out of sync so you have to adjust it.

[anothermartz]

If your characters have a flaming texture on them, go to

\tf\materials\Effects\tiledfire

and put these files in there:

[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99783/Other/fireLayeredSlowTiled512.vtf[/url]
[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99783/Other/fireLayeredSlowTiled512%20Original.vtf[/url]

The top file is just a blank texture and the bottom one is the original so you can revert incase you actually want to see a character on fire.

[BobIsAwesome]

Wait, so why can this be accessed by getting the earliest version of TF2? Was it accidently included back then?

[PGunnii]

I have a problem, whenever I open the Beta, all I get is the original TF2 menu with the console open and no tools. I know I put in the hotfix and the enginetools. I also mad the shortcut and put the launch properties in.

I put the hotfix and tools in the main folder before the tf folder, is this correct?

[anothermartz]

[QUOTE=KingKombat;19495404]I have a problem, whenever I open the Beta, all I get is the original TF2 menu with the console open and no tools. I know I put in the hotfix and the enginetools. I also mad the shortcut and put the launch properties in.

I put the hotfix and tools in the main folder before the tf folder, is this correct?[/QUOTE]

The contents of enginetools goes in the bin folder.

It should leave you with a "tools" folder inside of your bin folder.

[PGunnii]

Yeah, I fixed it before and it started working.

[b]now for questions[/b]
OK, so say I want to cut a clip in half, but have both halves be part of the same recording. In the second half of the clip I want to set the camera in a new postion. how do?

Also, how do I delete previous recordings without deleting the clip?

[thrawn2787]

[QUOTE=KingKombat;19496441]Yeah, I fixed it before and it started working.

[B]now for questions[/B]
OK, so say I want to cut a clip in half, but have both halves be part of the same recording. In the second half of the clip I want to set the camera in a new postion. how do?[/QUOTE]

Set the clip to be JUST the first camera angle. Then copy and paste the clip (so same clip TWICE, bear with me here). Then put the work camera wherever you want the first camera angle to be, and then right click on the first "shot" and hit "Set new Camera."

Now remember that second copy and pasted shot? Move the player (the blue stick thing) to the end of the second clip. Make the clip longer from the blue thing (doesn't matter how long) but keep the blue thing where it is. Now shrink the clip from the front end until it gets to the blue thing. Make sure you have the work camera selected, and move the camera to where you want it to be. Now right click on the second shot and hit "Set new camera" again. Now change from the "work camera" to "camera 1" or "camera 2" or whatever. Now pan through you timeline and the camera angle will change

It does work, I made this by doing that (and this was all one render). If what I typed is too confusing I can make a video tutorial tomorrow

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6opq0fHVPo[/hd]

[editline]09:40PM[/editline]

I'll make a video tut tomorrow anyways, so that way it can be added to the OP

[PGunnii]

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;19497123]Set the clip to be JUST the first camera angle. Then copy and paste the clip (so same clip TWICE, bear with me here). Then put the work camera wherever you want the first camera angle to be, and then right click on the first "shot" and hit "Set new Camera."

Now remember that second copy and pasted shot? Move the player (the blue stick thing) to the end of the second clip. Make the clip longer from the blue thing (doesn't matter how long) but keep the blue thing where it is. Now shrink the clip from the front end until it gets to the blue thing. Make sure you have the work camera selected, and move the camera to where you want it to be. Now right click on the second shot and hit "Set new camera" again. Now change from the "work camera" to "camera 1" or "camera 2" or whatever. Now pan through you timeline and the camera angle will change

It does work, I made this by doing that (and this was all one render). If what I typed is too confusing I can make a video tutorial tomorrow

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6opq0fHVPo[/hd][/QUOTE]

If you can, please do. Although I'm sure I could follow text, videos make it very easy to follow.

[thrawn2787]

Also a word of caution

SFM DOES NOT SAVE CAMERAS. IT SAVES SHOTS, NOT CAMERAS

So if it crashes, you have to replace all the cameras but all your shots will be the proper length and stuff

[editline]09:42PM[/editline]

Eh I'll make it tonight then, give me an hour or so

[PGunnii]

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;19497180]Also a word of caution

SFM DOES NOT SAVE CAMERAS. IT SAVES SHOTS, NOT CAMERAS

So if it crashes, you have to replace all the cameras but all your shots will be the proper length and stuff

[editline]09:42PM[/editline]

Eh I'll make it tonight then, give me an hour or so[/QUOTE]

Alright thanks alot. I can't wait to actually make something.

[thrawn2787]

Dunno when HD will be up but it should have 1080p when HD does show up

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HD5ZBINQg[/hd]

Have fun

[editline]10:40PM[/editline]

Yeah you might wanna wait till the quality gets better, hard to tell what I'm talking about lol (as in its hard to tell what the fuck is going on in the video, damn it youtube! GET HD OPTIONS FASTER)

[PGunnii]

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;19498071]Dunno when HD will be up but it should have 1080p when HD does show up

[hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HD5ZBINQg[/hd]

Have fun

[editline]10:40PM[/editline]

Yeah you might wanna wait till the quality gets better, hard to tell what I'm talking about lol (as in its hard to tell what the fuck is going on in the video, damn it youtube! GET HD OPTIONS FASTER)[/QUOTE]

Oh wow awesome thanks! I will watch right now.

[editline]10:54PM[/editline]

:O! I get it now.
Thanks alot, I'm sure this will be helpful to many.

[editline]10:56PM[/editline]

TerabyteS add this to OP.

[Zombii]

Wow. I really, really, really want to try this out. But I don't know how or where to get the Beta. If someone does, could they PM me? I know it has something to do with warez.

[Jimbomcb]

When in the camera tool, control clicking on a point will set that to the focal point for DoF.

For example, control leftclicking on the middle scout sets the focal point to

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1032139/tf2/cp_dustbowl0001.jpg[/img]

resulting in

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1032139/tf2/cp_dustbowl0002.jpg[/img]

[PGunnii]

I hate my life now. Just as I set the final camera after a successful movie, I get the windows plague.

"lololo hl2.exe has experienced some shit now fuck off loser"

Motherfuck, I nerdraged really fuckign hard.

[Zombii]

Does ANYONE know where to get the beta? Cmon, you can just PM me. :buddy:

[PGunnii]

OH MY FUCKING LORRRD IT HAPPENED AGAAAAAAAAAAIN

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

/caps

[PieClock]

Does anyone know how to get the hud back if you push escape while in game mode?

[Ferdam]

Very nice FAQ my friend ! :D

Was fucking useful for me, because I was stuck with lots of buttons...

[Smashman]

[QUOTE=Zombii;19498771]Does ANYONE know where to get the beta? Cmon, you can just PM me. :buddy:[/QUOTE]

Use fucking :google: