How to render an SFM poster at best possible quality settings?

[BoiSlipp]

In other words, what settings do I need to have before I hit render for the poster to have the best possible quality?

[Fluid Script Studios]

Best possible quality... There's so many different things one can do that can increase the quality of your image/movie, and the level at which you want this quality can range from elementary to complex...

So i'll just start you out with the most basic basic;

before rendering ANYTHING, everyone should use these console commands :

mat_mipmaptextures 0
mat_forceaniso 16

Startup option
-sfm_shadowmapres 8192

These commands will automatically make your crappy poster into amazing quality wise. Forceaniso makes textures that would otherwise depricate with distance from the camera, not depricate... and mip map textures forces all textures to use the highest pixel version of the texture available.

[Zappy]

Poster exports are known to have some issues, including post-processing (such as bloom and material overlays) not being applied and decaying flexes not "settling" fully, so you should do an image export instead.

To do a proper image export:
- Right-click the/a viewport, choose "Render Settings", and set it up as you want.
- Switch to the Clip Editor, and have the scene (non-"work") camera active.
- Stay still in time, and wait for the bottom-right sample counter to loop back to "Sample 1 of X".
- Click "File" > "Export" > "Image...", and save it somewhere with the filename ending in ".png" or such, or alternatively click "File" > "Export" > "Image to Clipboard", open an image editor, paste it, and save it from there.

This will export what's currently in the viewport (thus why you should wait for it to sample first), at the resolution set in "File" > "Export" > "Movie...".



The last bit means that to use a resolution beyond 1280x720, you should follow these instructions:

- Right-click Source Filmmaker in your Steam library.
- Choose "Properties" > "General" > "Set Launch Options...".
- Make sure that "-sfm_resolution X" is present (without quotes), with X being 720 (the default) for exports up to 1280x720, 1080 for up to 1920x1080, or 2160 for up to 3840x2160.
- Reboot Source Filmmaker (ignore any "window too small" warnings) and load the session.
- Click "File" > "Export" > "[/i]Movie...[/i]", choose the resolution that you want, and click "Cancel".
- Save the session, and then reload the session (to avoid a possible crash).
- Follow the above instructions to do an image export.
- Optionally change the "movie" resolution back to 1280x720 and save the session.
- Change the "-sfm_resolution X" launch option to have 720 as the number, as higher values can impact performance a lot while working on sessions. (You can also just remove it, but if you keep it in with the value set to 720, it'll be easier/faster to change it to 1080 or 2160 again in the future.)


It may sound like a lot, but that's only because that it takes many words to explain few things.

[BoiSlipp]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

Best possible quality... There's so many different things one can do that can increase the quality of your image/movie, and the level at which you want this quality can range from elementary to complex...

So i'll just start you out with the most basic basic;

before rendering ANYTHING, everyone should use these console commands :

mat_mipmaptextures 0
mat_forceaniso 16

Startup option
-sfm_shadowmapres 8192

These commands will automatically make your crappy poster into amazing quality wise. Forceaniso makes textures that would otherwise depricate with distance from the camera, not depricate... and mip map textures forces all textures to use the highest pixel version of the texture available.

Thanks for your answer. I've tried both settings and I did notice a slight increase in texture quality, but I also found out the usefulness of SSIO in the camera settings. They make a huge difference when rendering posters with quality shadows/lights for anyone who will stumble across this thread for help.