With Valve's recent release of the final "Meet the..." video for Team Fortress 2, they also unveiled Source FilmMaker, a free tool for creating animation and editing it.
The tool apparently has been used for all of Valve's animated promotional videos, such as those made for Half Life 2's episodes, Team Fortress 2's Meet the X series of videos, Left 4 Dead's intros and commercials, plus more recent projects like Dota 2.
The tool lets you manipulate animations in a 3D environment instantly, as well as capture motion or create new motion. There's also a facial animation feature, that lets users create complex facial animations, as seen in most of Valve's promotional videos.
There's also various tools to adjust lighting and sound, along with a suite of other tools to make for one of the most impressive pieces of animation software available to consumers.
No release date was given, but a beta will be starting soon and it will include a copy of Meet the Heavy to tweak and fool around with. You can see the video above for all the information.
Official Website and Beta Sign Up (Requires Steam)
