Blender vs. SFM

[Wilkins Coffee]

So, I've managed to make a small little animation inside of blender (nothing special, just some blocking stuff), but the way I made it was rather tedious, hard and confusing. It doesn't help that the few tuts I've found say that I'm doing everything right. (The method was placing bookmarks in the timeline and locking the rotation of the model, or something like that).
So here's my question: Does blender have anything like SFM's motion or graph editor and; is there any benefit to doing animations in blender as opposed to SFM? Is there anything blender can do animation-wise that SFM can't?

[R234]

Blender's animation method is a graph editor, and from what I've heard it's more advanced than SFM's, so yes, it can do stuff SFM can't. The motion editor is pretty much unique to SFM as far as I know.

[Juggernaut]

Yes there actually is a graph editer in Blender, and since I havent done much animating with Blender, I wouldnt really know if there is anything Blender could do that SFm can't, because like I said before, I havent animated much with Blender. So the only part I can tell you that Blender does have a Graph Editer. Maybe Pte Jack has animated a lot in his Blender, so he might be able to give more info. (Sorry I could only be little help)

EDIT: Ignore this now, lol, R234 gave better info then me. xD

[Wilkins Coffee]

R234님이 먼저 게시:

it can do stuff SFM can't.

Care to elaborate on that, R?
Part of the reason I'm thinking of moving to SFM over blender (in this case) is because the style of animation I need is (in my biased opinion) easier to obtain in SFM (a blocky, pose-to-pose 8-bit kinda style). But the model itself is already in blender. So if animating in blender is more beneficial and worth learning, then I'll keep learning. If it's not or there's no difference, then I'll port the model to SFM.

[Wilkins Coffee]

Vintage님이 먼저 게시:

I highly prefer Source FilmMaker for animation... but I've never used Blender for animation, so...

Same here, but my model's already in blender. Trying to decide if it's worth learning to animate in blender or learning to port from blender to Source.

[R234]

I don't know the specifics, I'm just basing this on hearsay. But Blender has a more complex animation layout, with a dope sheet and all, and from what I was told it works a bit better because some options are missing from SFM's graph editor, couldn't tell you which ones and how useful they really are. I don't use the graph editor in SFM anyway so I really coudn't tell you firsthand.

[Pte Jack]

Ah...hem, my ears have been ringing, did someone mention my name?

YES, There is a graph editor and an Animation editor in Blender.

The beauty of Blender is that you can create an animation or taunt and export it to a playable DMX file for the character that will work straight from Blender in SFM.
Though I haven't much practice at this yet, I think it may easier to create multi-character interaction sequences in Blender than SFM.

The Graph editor is more advanced than SFM and not as finicky. In the animation editor it is a heck of a lot easier to edit movement timing and it is a lot easier to copy and paste animations to extend or cycle an animation.

On top of this, if you create an animation in SFM and export an animation DMX, you can grab that DMX and import it into Blender and edit it there. (I am having some problems with attaching the animation from SFM to a mesh model but it may be something I'm doing wrong.)

You have to remember that Blender is a full blown 3d editing tool. Like SFM, it has a steep learning curve and it still take a lot practice to get it right, but it can be fun.

Also, did you know, that you can use Blender to render Image Sequence video and audio. It has an audio-video Sync utility that will keep the images in sync with the audio wav file (or vice-versa)

[Zappy]

Oh, and remember you can make your completely own rendering stuffs in Blender, which might be harder/impossible in Source FilmMaker without being one of the tech guys compiling the program in the first place. That includes stuff like dynamic reflections and 360-degree round lights with shadows. But I believe it's far slower to render stuff than Source FilmMaker.

[Pte Jack]

Rendering is rendering.. Always slow dependant on the resolutions, number of objects and animations. I'm currently rendering a 48 second MP4/H.264 at 1080p with the render setting at half in SFM. It's already been running for 6 hours and looks like the render is only 33% complete. I was going to do an image sequence just to see how well Blender would handle the render, but MANN, I wish there was an easier way to get this stuff out of SFM to try. It's totally BRUTAL!!!

[raptornx01]

Pte Jack님이 먼저 게시:

You have to remember that Blender is a full blown 3d editing tool. Like SFM, it has a steep learning curve and it still take a lot practice to get it right, but it can be fun.

actually, it'd be closer to https://www.dropbox.com/s/fewbleoqbvj4kqv/learningcurve.jpeg?dl=0

or possibly http://i.imgur.com/TQJlH2R.gif

[Pte Jack]

hahha, but at least ppl are documenting all those hidden features in Blender; Unlike SFM...

I think it's more like this...

http://imgur.com/RcJ0rsh

[raptornx01]

well, we do have the wiki, which gets added to all the time.

also, sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train.

[76561197967862282]

Facepalm!!!

Why did I know you were going to say the light might be a train!!! (Pte Joe SCREAMS as he smashes his head into the desk; MULTIPLE times)

[Captain Slow]

I've tried both Blender and SFM for animation, and honestly I can say that while Blender is probably better for animation in general, SFM makes TF2 animation much easier and typically has faster render times. It depends on your personal opinion and what you need to get done.

[Zappy]

Even then, I do know of at least one person who has made a whole scene/place in Blender, exported/compiled it for Source FilmMaker, and set it up in black_void with the lighting being made entirely with the lights in Source FilmMaker. And take a look at the Saxxy entry Cubey. So it's definitely not just for Source game animations, although for completely custom-made stuff by yourself, you might as well just use Blender. But yeah, I'll any (forseeable) day prefer Source FilmMaker.

[raptornx01]

You talking about Discopears? if so, yeah, that guy is pretty damn fantasic. i can't wait for models to be finished.