r/SFM May 10 '26

Help Source Filmmaker and Animation Tutorials

13 Upvotes

I'm tired of having to reply to various post about asking for SFM Tutorials, so I'm just going to make a post containing all the playlists that helped me learn SFM.

  1. The official SFM playlist by Valve.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B46DEB4157E67C4

This is where it all begins, The best way to learn almost all the basics of SFM is the official playlist on the Source Filmmaker channel. Aside from 2 videos, this is the best video for beginners.

The two videos that are not done well by the official channel are the Time Selection tutorial, and Graph Editor tutorial. They don't teach the most important parts.

  1. SFM Tutorial Week #2 - Using the Motion Editor by Argodaemon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfBfsqwylo0&list=PLmx5NIR6PO5t2vfHIX6GNkpXiFODM_6KJ&index=21

Now, THIS is the ultimate tutorial for the Motion Editor in the Motion Editor. It may be long, but it's well worth it. Argomadaemon's tutorial not only goes over everything from the Time Selection tutorial, but also goes over EVERY procedural preset, as well as overwrite, offset, and transform modes.

  1. How to Animate with the Graph Editor by Sir Wade Neistadt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ31vjgJM2c&t=44s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMSpauVphNs&t=308s

If you're looking to use the Graph Editor, Sir Wade Neistadt is THE go-to. Sir Wade covers EVERYTHING, from how to use the different fcurves in the Graph Editor for moving on a specific axis, to using the thing that makes the Graph Editor more powerful than the Motion Editor: The Tangents. Linear Tangents, Flat Tangents, Spline Tangents, Step Tangents, Weighted Tangents, and Unweighted Tangents.

The tutorial on the Source Filmmaker channel teaches you nothing about the Graph Editor's power.

  1. 12 Principles of Animation

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd

Of course, if you're going into SFM for 3D animation, you have to learn about the 12 Principles of Animation. Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Staging, Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose, Follow Through and Overlapping Action, Slow In and Slow Out, Arcs, Secondary Action, Timing, Exaggeration, Solid Drawing, and Appeal.

  1. Sir Wade Tips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ31vjgJM2c&list=PLS4vjlZXZ7f5m5ED4ylJdUPTR5YKEg1bY

Sir Wade Neistadt is basically a completely free college level animation course on Youtube. I've organized his videos into a nice playlist. In it, you'll learn things such as professional workflows, what NOT to do, animation blocking, and how to find reference, shooting your own reference, real world camera tips and tricks that you can apply to your 3D animation, keep alive workflow with how to do a breathing animation, animating weight, lighting tips, some Blender stuff, and even interviews with professional Disney animators.

  1. SFM Tutorials by Argomadaeon

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmx5NIR6PO5t2vfHIX6GNkpXiFODM_6KJ

Argomadaemon's playlist teaches you a lot about what SFM has, including Depth of Field and Motion Blur, Animation Cycles, Creating an artificial sun light, and more.

  1. SFM Tip of the Day by Jimmer Lins

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL835902EACBFEE65F

This one is for more misc, but still useful SFM Tips, such as how to control qc eyes to make them follow the camera, the lightkit, gibbing a character, slugs, and more.

8.Walk Cycle Tutorial Part 1 by Will Hurrel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE-jakm9mcQ

  1. Animating Walk Cycles and Run Cycles by Alan Becker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6aVz0Acx0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggdbxTJPG4

  1. Endless Reference

https://www.youtube.com/@endlessreference

This youtube channel is full of videos for movement reference for animation, whether it's walking, running, skipping, sitting, martial arts, etc.

This is a complete list of all the stuff that goes over absolutely everything you need in terms of SFM, and animation knowledge in general.


r/SFM Jan 11 '21

Announcement Scenebuilding Tutorial (LINK IN THE COMMENTS)

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1.2k Upvotes

r/SFM 5h ago

Artwork Godzilla Posters by Aluxray1245 SFM

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33 Upvotes

Credit me if you want to use these posters!

Kaijus include: Montser X, Shin Godzilla, Biollante, Godzilla Ultima.


r/SFM 12h ago

Artwork [TLoZ] Soup

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70 Upvotes

- Inspired by Nauskills' Maid Midna artworks

- DeviantArt link: https://www.deviantart.com/imafutureguitarhero/art/SFM-TLoZ-Soup-1359239677


r/SFM 2h ago

Artwork My Engie Loadout Render (3 more to go)

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5 Upvotes

r/SFM 6m ago

Request Hey does anyone know how or where I can find this model or maybe add some sort of rig for the cremators conscience? And yes I know it’s technically a custom model but then how did Lazy purple get his hands on it HUH >:( ?

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Upvotes

r/SFM 1d ago

Animation [SFM] Spy crabbing

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401 Upvotes

r/SFM 10h ago

Artwork STOP YAPPING AND FIGHT ME!!!

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10 Upvotes

r/SFM 1h ago

Artwork Some posters by me.

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Upvotes

r/SFM 8h ago

Help How to darken the background and make the background like has life?

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4 Upvotes

I'm a beginner of sfm? And I need help for improvement for my learning


r/SFM 5h ago

Help How do i make stuff more higher quality

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2 Upvotes

Even tho its exported at 4k and 60 fps itd not that good


r/SFM 1d ago

Animation Playing with HEV suit

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142 Upvotes

made in 1 day, learned animating face and exporting to mp4.


r/SFM 14h ago

Animation Small part of an animation I'm working on

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9 Upvotes

Still got a lot to work on. Tips?


r/SFM 9h ago

Animation what are y'all opinions on these "post-skibidi" series

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3 Upvotes

these are series you might've seen around youtube after the situation with invix and the original creator of skibidi toilet where dafuqboom lost his channel and migrated to the channel of doorClozer where he posted the human being and ahlelele ahlelas series.

the farben tire series is made my another animator called Flame16anim on youtube that mainly makes shorts. farben tire isn't really skibidi-inspired but the creator acknowledge how people might see it that way


r/SFM 6h ago

Artwork Spice

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1 Upvotes

r/SFM 6h ago

Help Weird SFM (source film maker) bug.

1 Upvotes

So I downloaded SFM and when I loaded a map (2fort), the 3D window, that showed the map, when I moved the mouse SLOWLY the 3D window went black for a second. After I stopped moving the mouse the screen got back to normal. If I move the mouse normally (not slow but not fast the window is alr. If I move the mouse FAST the window becomes bright. What is this bug?


r/SFM 1d ago

Artwork My Heavy Loadout Render (4 more to go)

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17 Upvotes

r/SFM 12h ago

Help Can't find TF2 map

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1 Upvotes

r/SFM 23h ago

Help so my rotation wheel turned into a crank for a mechanism

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5 Upvotes

r/SFM 22h ago

Help Can't move character

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5 Upvotes

I'm holding ctrl but no bones are popping up


r/SFM 18h ago

Help SFM just straight up feels broken now.

2 Upvotes

Not sure if it's my shitty laptop or not but trying to do simple things like drag a body group over another to lock them to each other

or rotate models in the preview, only to have the camera spin and rotate around them at the speed of light before zooming out to the nearest universe before zooming into the model on a subatomic level just makes it feel plain wrong.

And I know I CAN drag and drop things, I'm able to do it right after opening a project.

The issue is if I do ANYTHING ELSE, I CAN"T DO IT ANYMORE

So any anyone give me points on how to fix/suffer through this? Because I don't remember SMF being THIS jank before


r/SFM 1d ago

Artwork Was working on posing Pyro for fun..

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59 Upvotes

Found out SFM.. was not as easy as i presumed (after an hour i figured it out)


r/SFM 1d ago

Animation ANYTHING THE RX78 CAN DO.....

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4 Upvotes

THE GM SNIPER II CAN TOO!!!!!