SFM or Blender?

[castoroil]

Which is easier to use, makes better results, anyone? I've seen some truly beautiful things made in both, but ive also seen some very bad things. Comments?

[castoroil]

bad as in low-quality

[castoroil]

no offense to anyone

[Zappy]

It's easier to make good-quality stuff in Source FilmMaker, but with enough experience, the quality can be much better in Blender. So I'd say Source FilmMaker to start with (it's easier to make something simple in than Blender). Make sure to watch the official tutorials.

[Detonatress]

Here's what SFM can do:
Fast rendering.
Easy animating (it's more straight-forward than Blender at this since this is its main purpose).

Here's what SFM doesn't do so well:
Reflections kind of suck. You either need to rely on RT Cameras which have problem with Ambient Occlusion or on pre-animated textures.
It lacks certain types of shaders.
You probably cannot have any good fur in SFM.
Refraction sucks / is buggy.

What SFM cannot do at all:
Create models.
Convert models by itself.
Have perfect realtime reflections like you get in Blender or other modeling software.

So Blender's for more advanced effects & animation while SFM is mainly for quick animation and a lot of work to make things look similar to Dreamworks and such.

[Zappy]

引用自 Detonatress：

You probably cannot have any good fur in SFM.

You can have pretty good fur if you just try hard enough (model and jiggle-bone every strand of hair), but also still pretty good fur if you don't try much at all (but know what you're doing).

引用自 Detonatress：

Refraction sucks / is buggy.

Actually, refraction works really well in Source FilmMaker (as long as you don't try to refract something to see something outside the rendered view, I think), it's just Spy-cloaking that doesn't work as intended.

[Detonatress]

引用自 Zappy：

引用自 Detonatress：

You probably cannot have any good fur in SFM.

You can have pretty good fur if you just try hard enough (model and jiggle-bone every strand of hair), but also still pretty good fur if you don't try much at all (but know what you're doing).

引用自 Detonatress：

Refraction sucks / is buggy.

Actually, refraction works really well in Source FilmMaker (as long as you don't try to refract something to see something outside the rendered view, I think), it's just Spy-cloaking that doesn't work as intended.

I think it would take a ton of work + model bodygrouping (even that is pretty limited I think) to have anything nearly as cool as James from Monsters Inc.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/b/bd/James_P._Sullivan.png/revision/latest?cb=20131125222820
And I'm not talking about hair created through an alpha texture (which lets you get away by putting the fur as layers) but actual fur models like one model per hair.

As the experiments with creating the lens that this Spy in my avatar have shown, refraction doesn't work so well. If I'd turn the lens upside-down it would shrink images instead of zooming in on them.
But that's not the worst. I tried to create a refracting sphere. All I got was a refracting circle.
Can you make a refracting teapot from example, with accurate refraction that will take its shape, without the use of a normal map? Making a proper normal map for an object seems difficult.
Plus there's that horrible bug that makes it reflect the back side of a character that's looking at the refracting object.

[Zappy]

引用自 Detonatress：

And I'm not talking about hair created through an alpha texture - but actual fur models like one model per hair.

引用自 Zappy：

You can have pretty good fur if you just try hard enough (model and jiggle-bone every strand of hair),

引用自 Detonatress：

If I'd turn the lens upside-down it would shrink images instead of zooming in on them.

I'm pretty sure that's due to the way you (didn't) UV map it. You just took one side of the lense and mirrored it, right? That basically "also" mirrors/flips/rotates the UV map, which you wouldn't want.

引用自 Detonatress：

Can you make a refracting teapot from example, with accurate refraction that will take its shape, without the use of a normal map?

With Spy-cloaking, you can, but Spy-cloaking does have the issue of refracting its own refraction. (But the refraction itself is pretty good with Spy-cloaking.)

[episoder]

a refracting sphere? lol i tried that too... long ago. a lil marble. didn't want to do it. ;)

@zappy. the problem with the lens is the normal map. it's 2d. for example the red channel above 128 as center value samples in the right direction. it's correct in for wide sampling. if you turn it around it samples in the same direction with the same distance. but being on the other side the picture is getting smaller into the center instead.

[Detonatress]

引用自 Zappy：

引用自 Detonatress：

And I'm not talking about hair created through an alpha texture - but actual fur models like one model per hair.

引用自 Zappy：

You can have pretty good fur if you just try hard enough (model and jiggle-bone every strand of hair),

引用自 Detonatress：

If I'd turn the lens upside-down it would shrink images instead of zooming in on them.

I'm pretty sure that's due to the way you (didn't) UV map it. You just took one side of the lense and mirrored it, right? That basically "also" mirrors/flips/rotates the UV map, which you wouldn't want.

引用自 Detonatress：

Can you make a refracting teapot from example, with accurate refraction that will take its shape, without the use of a normal map?

With Spy-cloaking, you can, but Spy-cloaking does have the issue of refracting its own refraction. (But the refraction itself is pretty good with Spy-cloaking.)

See Episoder's explanation for the lens.

There is a glitch where the Spy Cloak will indeed refract properly when used on any object, but this bug can be used only ONCE. It can never be repeated with the same object even if you close SFM and reopen it, for whatever reason. The bug involves applying the cloakfactor ability to the VMT of the model and then setting the cloak to a near-one value (like 0.99999999999999) and it will then refract. It is broken if you go into game mode or restart SFM.

[The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS)]

引用自 Detonatress：

Here's what SFM can do:
Fast rendering.
Easy animating (it's more straight-forward than Blender at this since this is its main purpose).

Here's what SFM doesn't do so well:
Reflections kind of suck. You either need to rely on RT Cameras which have problem with Ambient Occlusion or on pre-animated textures.
It lacks certain types of shaders.
You probably cannot have any good fur in SFM.
Refraction sucks / is buggy.

What SFM cannot do at all:
Create models.
Convert models by itself.
Have perfect realtime reflections like you get in Blender or other modeling software.

So Blender's for more advanced effects & animation while SFM is mainly for quick animation and a lot of work to make things look similar to Dreamworks and such.

Dont reflections require mat_specular 1 to work properly? I mean, in some cases it looks beautiful, but in others its just really stupid looking

[Zappy]

引用自 Custard Crems：

Dont reflections require mat_specular 1 to work properly?

Mat_Specular 0 DISABLES environment-maps...
Or if you don't mean environment maps, whatever, Source FilmMaker doesn't support dynamic reflections at all (except on static water that's part of a map).

[The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS)]

引用自 Zappy：

引用自 Custard Crems：

Dont reflections require mat_specular 1 to work properly?

Mat_Specular 0 DISABLES environment-maps...
Or if you don't mean environment maps, whatever, Source FilmMaker doesn't support dynamic reflections at all (except on static water that's part of a map).

Yeah. I know mat_specular 0 disables it, while vice versa enables it. Like i said, it looks great when it reflects light off of a tiled surface, but when it dogs it up, it looks obviously bad.

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

引用自 Zappy：

. Make sure to watch the official tutorials.

Ignore this. Valve is very vauge on their tutorials, they're very basic and they didn't even bother finishing the series of them.

The community has made much better, more varied guides on YouTube.

[Zappy]

引用自 Fuzzy Whiskers：

they're very basic

Exactly. Not everyone has used Source FilmMaker for 5000 hours when they first start using Source FilmMaker.

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

引用自 Zappy：

引用自 Fuzzy Whiskers：

they're very basic

Exactly. Not everyone has used Source FilmMaker for 5000 hours when they first start using Source FilmMaker.

I didn't say they did...
And that's also impossible.

But the tutorials teach you in 2 hours or so what you can learn in half that from other videos.