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Checklist to Make Sure Your Poster Looks Good
By Probable Orange
So you have finished your poster, and youre ready to render it or publish it. But before you do that, you should make sure that your poster meets these pointers for a better poster. This guide is for people who have some knowledge of SFM and how to use it. I will not explaining how to do, just what to do.
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Created by
Probable Orange
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Category: Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
14 Oct, 2017 @ 12:14am
16 Nov, 2022 @ 12:16am
4,435 Unique Visitors
975 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
The Checklist 
The Checklist Cont. 
Thanks for reading. 
Comments
The Checklist


  • The FOV is reasonable
    I have seen way too many posters where the user doesnt even bother to edit the camera. The result is the default distorting everything and ruining the scene.

    Pictured here is a scene where the camera field of view is set to its default. Take note of the distortion While in this scene, the FOV was edited to suit the scene better. See how everything in this scene flows together?


  • There is lighting and it does not look awful
    Lighting is a very important part of anything related to arts. SFM posters are no exception. The reason why you see a poster, and mention how good it is, a good portion of it is the quality of its lighting. Do not ignore its power.

    Here is alot of the lighting quality I see in the artwork section. Its flat and its bland. Some people think that if their scene is lit, it will look good. The scene is greatly improved with only two varied lights. One light is acting as a rimlight, the other is acting as the main light. This combination creates an aesthetically pleasing scene. Of course, you arent limited to one style of lighting. This example makes use of color contrast to add a type of feel to the scene, and it turns out quite well.
  • The characters are posed properly
    Many artists forget how the human body works, and pose their characters in unrealistic and very uncomfortable poses. An easy way to deetermine if your pose is good or not is to do it yourself, and figure out whats more comfortable. Remember to have your character's pose flow in a single curved line. Those bring out the action and emotion very well. Oh and dont forget that shoulders exist and they are required to be posed.
    This example pose showcases what many beginners do when they pose their character. Its stiff, uncomfortable, emotionless, and has no flow. The shoulders were also forgotten. Now this example shows how a pose should be done. This example is the exact opposite of the previous one, and consequentley, it looks much better that the latter.
  • You are not using sequences
    DONT USE SEQUENCES NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER
    NO









    Yes

  • The composition is interesting
    Composition is key. Composition is what makes your scene flow. It dictates how the lighting should look, and how the characters and the rest of the scene should look. Your poster should thoughtfully use the elements portrayed to acheive a nice looking image. Rule of thirds, for example, helps you place your objects in a scene in a way that looks pleasing, but it's not the de-facto way of doing things. A good rule of thumb is to avoid negative space (Areas of the picture where nothing visually interesting is going on), unless the piece calls for these negative spaces to elicit an emotion. Like a character standing in an open field with lots of sky overhead to signify loneliness.
    As you can see, there is nothing interesting going on in this composition. The solider is just existing in the center of the screen without any context as to why he's doing what he's doing. Rule of thirds can help improve this image. Now that the Soldier has been shifted to the side, and two rockets were added to fill up the empty space, this frame looks much more action packed and your eyes easily move around the picture.
The Checklist Cont.
  • The art style of the models and the map fit together, unless it makes sense.
    Mixing art styles is never a good idea, unless you know what you are doing. The contrast bewteen the art styles, unless done properly, will conflict and simply ruin it.
    Sure, the rifle looks cool, but it looks way less cool when its held by someone who is cartoony, and even their hands are too big for the rifle itself. Now here, it makes sense. You have the survivors fighting off a horde of TF2 zombies. This poster tells a story. The survivors could have fell into a portal into an alternate TF2 universe, and have been hopelessly surrounded by the undead. Sure, there is a mismatch between the styles of art, but it makes sense.
  • The render is at a good sampling rate
    Self explanatory.
    This poster showcases why high sampling rates are a must. There is no excuse. No one cares that you have a slow computer. You ALWAYS hide the AO grain and other artifacting caused by low render settings. Of course, this is an easy fix. For render settings I just recommend setting your depth of field to 128 samples. Unless youre doing something extreme, like having a really, and I mean really blurry background, you can raise it to 256, or even 512 samples. You shouldnt care about the render time. This is supposed to be a finished product, and you're putting all you got into it. Including the time spent on it.

  • Its not FNAF, Splatoon, MLP, or weeb trash
    no

  • Your watermark isnt awful
    Artists use watermarks to make sure the viewers know who made the poster they are looking at, but a huge, ugly watermark will instantly ruin the hard work you have done.
    This is quite self explanatory. And although this watermark is an exaggeration, this is a good representation of what I see in the community. Dont do this. Do this instead. You can clearly see the watermark on the bottom right. To someone who is just looking at the poster, the watermark is invisible. But if youre scanning the poster, looking for the artist of it, it pops right out.
  • The resolution is at least over 2k
    Resolution is important. Just like sample sizes, you want to make sure your poster looks the best it can be. And the size of it is important. Thats because some people might like your poster enough to save it, and print it out or set it as a desktop background, but a low resolution will deter them from doing that.
    1080p posters are ugly. There is no sugar coating this. The pixelation makes it blurry, and you cant use your poster as a desktop background. You already invested time into making your poster, and it will not kill you to invest like 3 minutes to render the thing. Here are some of the resolutions you can render your poster in: 2048x1080 (2K) 3840x2160 (4K) (Recommended) 7680x4320 (8K)


  • The poster went through photoshop or any other image post processing tool
    SFM can do alot, but it cant do everything. And some things that it does, it does poorly. Luckily, we have programs that allow us to edit our artwork in post. Some bloom here, a fixed shadow artifact there, and voila, you have just made things look better.
Now while this poster I have made looks nice and is well lit, SFM has a limit to how good your image can look. This is where Photoshop(Or Gimp) come in. And just like that, with a filter, added bloom effects, film grain, and some small fixes tweaks and additions, the poster becomes my magnum opus.
Thanks for reading.
I appreciate your effort into finishing this short guide with the intent of improving the quality of your art. I have been using SFM for nearly 4 years now, and I was glad to share some of that experience with you. But dont just read the guide, share it. Every time you see a terrible poster, link the artist of said poster this guide, so the artist can fix everything wrong with the poster, and learn from it.

Happy animatin'

~Doomsday Orange
85 Comments
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RandomGuyYouMet 28 Feb, 2024 @ 3:20pm 
thx!
Probable Orange  [author] 28 Feb, 2024 @ 2:40pm 
The suitcase:

Right now its presented like "Oh yeah heres this idk enjoy or whatever" when it should be more like hes shoving the case into your face, demanding your attention. A dutch camera angle (look it up) will help out with that feeling.

The background:
- Feels rather bland. No context to whats going on and where hes at. You could try dressing up the set to look like a bar or some seedy poker lounge. Really make the place look like the type of place a sunglassed skeleton would posture a suitcase towards you.
Probable Orange  [author] 28 Feb, 2024 @ 2:40pm 
What you can do to improve is several things:

The camera:
- Play around with the angle and position. RIght now it feels like the camera is level and at head height. Maybe rotate it a bit so that the suitcase is being presented at an angle.

The skeleton:
- Hes centered right now and the whole composition feels way too balanced right now. You can have him off to the side, looking at the camera from behind the case
- Have his other hand do something than being idle. He could be holding his sunglasses down slightly, peering at you with his empty sockets
RandomGuyYouMet 28 Feb, 2024 @ 2:33pm 
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3170149814

like this?
*note i posted this right after you commented
Probable Orange  [author] 28 Feb, 2024 @ 2:13pm 
Your lighting shoukd be used to highlight the focus on your subject matter. In this case its the briefcase. A suggestion I would make is to work in fullbright only, focusing on your composition first. Use lighting to highlight your existing composition afterwards. Just populate your scene with characters and props positioned in a way to not detract from your main subject matter. Id study classical art pieces and how they compose their scenes.

Using Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks [upload.wikimedia.org] as an example, you can see how all the men around the writer serve to funnel the viewers gaze onto the writer himself. He stands out through his black clothing contrasting the Kossacks more lighter garbs.
RandomGuyYouMet 28 Feb, 2024 @ 1:12pm 
*Be
RandomGuyYouMet 28 Feb, 2024 @ 1:12pm 
Hey uhh, if i'm doing a poster with main attraction on the brief case, how should the lighting me?
idiot 3 25 Aug, 2023 @ 6:23pm 
https://youtu.be/DdmNYNkcwKE
Untrained 10 Mar, 2023 @ 9:15pm 
this has, indeed, been quite the useful bible, i now make mostly posters and consider myself a decent sfm user
chico 27 Jan, 2023 @ 2:19am 
nice guide thanks a lot