Source Filmmaker remains an incredible resource for budding animators, sound directors and sadist comics, and that’s been proven all over again in this year’s Saxxy Awards.
There’s no room to collate all of the nominees here, so I’ve decided to highlight the new Shorts category – designed to encourage Source Filmmaker veterans and newbies alike to cut out the flab and limit themselves to one minute of devious direction. The results are the likes of Crackpot – an accomplished variation on the sinister theme tapped in Valve’s official Meet the Pyro video:
Survival of the Fittest is part Assassin’s Creed, part Dishonored, and a little too much cigarette smoke and disorienting mirrors if you ask me:
No Hard Feelings, meanwhile, is a Pixar-like tale of big-eyed turret love in Portal 2:
But the Shorts category winner is the Mann Co. Symphony, which makes a compelling argument for a TF2 rhythm-action spinoff:
The winner of the whole shebang, however, comes from the Action category. Lil’ Guardian Pyro does a great job of expanding on the established physicality of the TF2 universe’s characters. And then it introduces a couple of characters of its own:
Next year, I think I’d like to see a few more filmmakers leave behind the familiar environs of 2Fort for newly animated pastures – as difficult a technical ask as that surely is. How about you?