

The 2013 Saxxy Awards were announced on October 2, 2013, with entries being accepted from November 11 through November 18. Winners received a golden statue of the game's character Saxton Hale, and the Best Overall winner was given a trip to Valve Headquarters to meet the team that created the Source Filmmaker tool. The winners were announced on November 30, but the winner of the Best Overall category was not revealed until the Spike Video Game Awards ceremony.

The 2012 finalists received an item which was simply a video camera that is used as a melee weapon, while the winners each received the aforementioned Saxxy. The 2011 competition required that all video content be based exclusively on Team Fortress 2 however, the 2012 competition allowed content to be based on any of Valve's properties. The 20 competition categories from the 2011 awards were reduced to five for 2012: Best Action, Best Replay, Best Comedy, Best Drama, and Best Overall. The short voting period was because Valve planned to show the video that won in the Best Overall category at the Spike Video Game Awards on December 7. Voting opened on November 16, 2012, and ran until November 27. The 2012 Saxxy Awards were announced by Valve in August 2012. Winners are decided by public polling and a Valve jury, allowing voters to thumbs-up or thumbs-down entrants through the Steam online platform during voting periods.
#Source filmmaker requirements software#
Valve released the Source Filmmaker software before the second competition, which allowed users to animate their own videos using Valve's video game assets, including models, dialogue, sound effects, and particle systems. Originally, the Saxxy Awards encouraged fans of Team Fortress 2 to create machinima (video game-based films) based around the video game the competition has since expanded to include other video games. There have been 26 Saxxy Awards given out to winners since 2012. The winner of the 2012 'Best Overall' category was flown to Valve in Bellevue, Washington for a filmmaking session with the company's very own filmmakers this became a tradition for each of the following years' Saxxy Awards.

In 2012, the number of categories was limited to five, and the contestants are required to use Valve's Source Filmmaker software to create their animations.Įach year, winners receive an in-game melee weapon for Team Fortress 2 named a Saxxy it is a golden statue of the game's backstory character, Saxton Hale, who was the namesake for the awards. The first competition was held in 2011 and included 20 competition categories. The Saxxy Awards was an annual worldwide competition for 3D-animated films, hosted by video game developer, Valve.
#Source filmmaker requirements free#
It will be a free download, and initially only compatible with Team Fortress 2."Recognizing excellence in combat filmmaking"

Source Filmmaker is currently in a closed beta, with a release expected later this year. Valve says that it will continue to add features to Source Filmmaker according to the company's needs for its own trailers, with those features then made available to all users. "By utilising the hardware rendering power of a modern gaming PC, the SFM allows storytellers to work in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get environment so they can iterate in the context of what it will feel like for the final audience." "Because the SFM uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie, and vice versa. "The Source Filmmaker (SFM) is the movie-making tool built and used by us here at Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine," Valve said. Custom items, characters and set pieces can also be added similar to any Source engine game mod. Users can play out scenes in games, place cameras, create custom animations and more all from within the game itself.
