Announced in tandem with Team Fortress 2‘s new “Meet the Pyro” short, Valve’s Source Filmmaker is being made available in beta, with a free release planned for later this year. The in-Source Engine tool aims to condense the animation production process down to a user-friendly, single-PC level.
“The goal of the SFM was to develop a story telling tool that allowed us to create computer animated movies more efficiently, and with greater creative freedom,” said Bay Raitt, designer at Valve. “Over the past five years, we’ve produced more than 50 animated shorts with the SFM. The Source Filmmaker will allow our community to create their own movies in Team Fortress 2 and in their own Source SDK-created mods.”