r/SFM • • May 10 '26

Help Source Filmmaker and Animation Tutorials

18 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 • • 1h ago

Commission SFM meme because why not

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• Upvotes

r/SFM • • 3h ago

Artwork The Observer (Slendermann horror)(WIP)

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4 Upvotes

I wanted to hop on the sfm horror genre for halloween. I saw the Slenderman cosmetic on the workshop and I felt like making a Slenderman horror short animation.

Set in a WW2 theme, 4 characters must extract from a forest location and go back to base. Little do they know, they're being stalked by an unknown entity.

Started project already, challenging myself to not use a voice ai and try to be accurate to Slenderman's abilities.


r/SFM • • 29m ago

Help I can use

• Upvotes

I really need help because I actually do want to make cool animations but the way I want to start is with firefights otherwise I'm just stuck to hand to hand and swords and a lot of things don't have as much impact as I want them to without particles but I can't use the particle system every time I try it just doesn't give me the option to use any of the particles and anything that I look up doesn't give me an answer


r/SFM • • 3h ago

Help how the fuck did this happen

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3 Upvotes

so i was just trying to get mods for SFM on the workshop but whenever i clicked onto a mod this showed up. That only happens when i click onto a individual mod to download cause i can still see the front page and search with zero problems


r/SFM • • 7h ago

Animation Zhu Yuan in the kitchen

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4 Upvotes

I'm still trying to do a good animation, in this one i use the model and the camera do make the sense of something is being animated even zhu yuan (the model) is do not doing walking animation (something i still need to learn in this software.
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Software: Source Filmmaker (SFM) free on Steam
Model: Zhu Yuan (R. Star?)
Map: Apartment 2017 (Doro)
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#3dart #3danimation #zzz #zhuyuan


r/SFM • • 18h ago

Artwork Sailerman wants brains!!

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27 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 19h ago

Artwork Still a flame

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24 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 7h ago

Artwork First time trying sfm

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3 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Animation Saxton Hale

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88 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork F i G H T

13 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork The whole gang

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9 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 18h ago

Animation Is this peak?

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2 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork Sentry girls

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61 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 19h ago

Commission if any one could,

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2 Upvotes

idk if this would be a commission but yeah


r/SFM • • 19h ago

Help sfm froze?

1 Upvotes

i recently made an SFM picture, and was trying to export it. i acidentally exported it to a non existent folder, but i had a backup. when i opened the back-up the display screen it was black. i've tried closing and re-opening it but its done nothing. other versions work too. any idea how to fix it?


r/SFM • • 20h ago

Artwork Made these TF2 Wolfenstein wallpapers

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1 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Help Anyone got anything that can help me improve my lighting (I'm trying to do something similar to what the winglet or arno

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6 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork Capn' In The Air

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2 Upvotes

Capn' from Deltarune showing his skills at skating!


r/SFM • • 21h ago

Animation AiT The Source Movie - Chase scene

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1 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork Day 14 of Voltober - CHANCE

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3 Upvotes

Timelapse here!


r/SFM • • 1d ago

Artwork Nighty night dingo!!

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20 Upvotes

Poor dingo won’t sleep and sailer only sees one option..


r/SFM • • 2d ago

Artwork Another reference lmao

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223 Upvotes

r/SFM • • 2d ago

Artwork “I TOLD YA DINGO SMOKIN KILLZ PAL! WHY’D YOU DO IT?!”

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20 Upvotes

I love sfm and serverblight yumeslop yum