SFM Pyrotte Academy

[kayakazan-academy]

Finger posing's a bitch, any tips for making this task easier?

I don’t really have any particular technique to make finger posing easier because I kinda got used to doing it the long way by posing all 30 bones individually.

That being said, I looked up tips for this matter after reading that question and I did find something relevant : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CUNfNSGdU&feature=youtu.be&t=1m54s

I summed the video in the gif below :

And a text form if you somehow can’t see the gif :

- Right click on the rotation circle in the viewport- Rotation Mode > Local- Select finger bones from 2 to 0- Rotate the bone you selected last

Of course, this tip works for more than just fingers ! You could use it for arms, legs, spines or tails for example~

[kayakazan-academy]

Quick and basic question because I must be some sort of dumb ass, how does one actually expand the models in the first place? I have the all the models but is there some sort orlf tools that actually allows you to expand them?

The things that allow us to expand Donan’s expandable Pyrotte model are called flexes. Basically, they move the model’s polygons around to change its overall shape.

They are located under Unknown and are easily recognizable because they don’t have a plus sign next to their name.

To make the flex works, select it then drag the slider that appears under the Procedural window to the right.

[kayakazan-academy]

Is this account still active?

Yes, it is ! It’s just pretty slow because I take a lot of time trying to come up with clear and explicit explanations.

[kayakazan-academy]

Liquify, the art of turning polygons into curves

“It looks so smooth :Q” ~@yourdeadfool

I’ve been told plenty of times how pretty damn smooth the curves of my pictures are but how do I do it so well ? Through one simple tool of Photoshop (Follow these instructions to get a legal copy Photoshop CS2 for free.) and plenty of practice~

1 - Use the Magic Wand and the Lasso to select the parts of the picture you want to make smoother.

(On the top left, you can choose the tolerance of the magic wand to allow him to take more color difference at once. In the gif below, the magic wand has a tolerance of 30 but you’ll have to adapt it to your situation.)

2 - Press CTRL+C then CTRL+V to copy your selection to a new layer.

3 - In the Filter menu, choose the Liquify... option. A new window will appear.

4 - Using your mouse, drag the shapes around to make it as smooth as you can, maybe thicker too~

(On the right of the Liquify window, there’s several options for your brush. I only really modify the Brush Size but feel free to try the other options.)

(On the left side, you can choose what effect to give to your brush. Again, feel free to experiment with them but I mostly use the first two. The first one is the standard tool I used in the gif above and the second slowly restore your modification.)

And that’s it for the basics~ It might be difficult at the start but once you get used to the tools, you won’t need smoother SFM models since you’ll fix the polygons in Photoshop~

[kayakazan-academy]

This happens every time I resize my pyroettes.

I right-click on the model, go to Utilities, and select “Add scale control to model(s)”. Everything looks fine until I alter the size of their assests, then their assets either shrink or dissappear all together.

How do you make your characters busty and tall?

This is a simple issue to solve~ You see, the reason why these parts of the body shrink when you grow the model is because they are what we call jigglebones. Simply put, they gently wiggle in different direction when the main model is moving. The thing is they are not accessible in SFM as is and they do not follow the resize of the model. SO ! To fix that :

Right click on the name of the model then go to Utilities > Bake Procedural Bones.

After that, check the Unknown list of bones and you’ll see this. That means the jigglebones turned into normal bones~ So now you can manipulate them just like any other bone.

So now, we resize the whole model and...

There, all tall and plump~ So, when you want to grow those tits and ass beyond the slider or whenever you want to make giantess or tiny little Pyrottes, make sure to Bake Procedural Bones every time~

[kayakazan-academy]

How to you make the pyros so smooth? Mine all have this annoying shine on the belly area.

I’m in the making of a post about making the Pyrottes’ shapes smooth so stay tuned for that~

As for the shine on the belly :

Do you mean this ? You might be using the non-optimized Pyrotte model. I made a new one some time ago and I think I fixed the annoying shine on the new version. Get it here.

In any case, there’s a few method to remove or soften it but we’ll go for the Paint Tool SAI method. Link to the software if you don’t have it.

You’ll have to use the Blur tool. This one tool has many good uses on my pictures, mostly for fixing many parts of it.

Simply use the blur tool like a paint brush. What it basically does is gathering the colors within the circle and mix them together.

This is a rough example but you should get the idea~

[kayakazan-academy]

“I have a question about SFM.”

WAIT A SECOND !

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:Source_Filmmaker

Have you checked this website first ? It's the official documentation regarding the basics of how to use SFM.

I suggest you check it before coming to me~ Questions such as “How do I spawn models” and “How do I go to a map” are answered in that documentation.

[kayakazan-academy]

Hellooooo, fellow Pyrotte fan~ Welcome to the newly opened SFM Pyrotte Academy~ In this place, I’ll help old and new SFM Pyrotte artists with their pictures by providing them with instructions on how to improve them and some other stuff~

So what does the picture say... :

SFM questions answered : I’ll do my best to answer all of your questions about Source Filmmaker, the software I use for all of my pictures. I’ll also answer questions about what you can do after rendering the picture.

Occasional random tutorials : Sometime, I’ll make a post about how I do a certain part of my pictures.

Gif + Text instructions : Most of my instructions will come with several gifs of me doing the things~

Picture review : You can send your picture my way so I can review it and provide you with some help on how you can improve it~

So come on in and find the help you need~