1) If you intend to work only with L4D content, you can delete the content already in SFM from hl2 & tf2, thereby freeing up space on your hard disk and preserving the PC's RAM while the program is running. If you do not want to delete everything completely, you can delete only that part that you will not use, for example, materials, models, sounds that are not needed for norms. the functioning of Left 4 Dead maps and models, and leave, for example, ragdols with chl2, which have a good animation library. So:
1.1 Go to SourceFilmmaker \ game \ hl2 \ materials and delete all the folders that are there, leave only the models folder (if we want to keep the models with hl2), if not, delete everything.

Tip: It is advisable not to skip this item, because it is not a little important, this is done in order to avoid the conflict of materials files that arise when adding this content to the tool. I don’t know how it will be with the endgame from other games, but with this, if you do not do what is written above, on some cards several textures will flash white, depending on the rotation of the camera.

2) Next, go to the folder with models (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ hl2 \ models) and delete all folders, leaving only those that are needed, for example the humans || zombie folders. If you don't need anything with hl2, delete everything.

3) Next, go to the root hl2 folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ hl2), and delete the sound folder, then go to the scenes folder (if there is one, I don’t remember exactly), and delete all scenes, * .vcd files. Be sure to leave the scenes.image file, it is needed to load the tool.
It seems like we got around to hl2, as a result, the hl2 folder should look something like this:
4) We go to the tf2 folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ tf), and we do almost everything the same as described in points 1-3, although there are small nuances.
In the folder with materials (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ tf \ materials), leave these folders here:

In the models folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ tf \ models) these are:


What we left in the folders of models and materials will be needed for the instrument to work in recording mode, or rather, so that the scout has a cue ball in his hands, has poor health, and so on ... when you are recording.

5) We do everything that is written in paragraph 3
As a result, the tf folder will be something like this:

And yet, i forgot damn it, delete the particles folder from the folders (tf, hl2, tf_movies), otherwise there will be a conflict again, and in the future, particles (fire, smoke, flies, water splashes, etc.) will not be displayed on our maps (maps with l4d) .)
This completes our preparation of the Left 4 Dead content import tool!
We try to launch SFM, if after all these manipulations it starts, then you did everything right, and you are a man

Method 1 - Direct connection.

+ good saving of space on your hard drive.
- the inability to change anything. This does not suit us, because some files will need to be changed for them to work properly.

I'll still explain how to do it:

1) To implement this, of course, SFM must be installed on your PC, and L4D (pirate or not - don't care)
We go to the folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ usermod) and open the file gameinfo.txt in some text editor, look for a line with the text "SearchPaths" without quotes.) We see the following:
Game tf
Where:
Game - (paramtr) tf - (The name of the existing content folder in SFM, or the path to the game.info file of the game with which the content will be used)
Everything is extremely simple. Now we need to do the same to connect our content to the tool.
2) We go to the Left 4 dead folder, and look for the same file in it, named game.info, I have it along this path, (D: \ Aplications \ Games \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ left 4 dead \ left4dead). And so, found it?, Were you convinced?, If so, copy this path to your buffer:

3) Go back to the first game.info file in the folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ usermod), open it again, go to the "SearchPaths" line, and at the very bottom add the Game parameter, open the bracket, and insert our path to the game content (which we copied), then close the bracket again. After the changes, it will look like this:
That's all. We save our file by pressing the key combination Ctrl + S, close it? and then launch SFM to check our work.
Loaded, poke RMB on the vyuport and select the LoadMap ...:

further in the map filter, look for the left4dead item



If they are there, and the list of maps is loaded, then the content is connected, and already (roughly speaking) you can work, but as I said there will be many errors that cannot be fixed.




1) Go to the SFM root folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game), and create a folder in it called left4dead:



2) Go to the same game.info file (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ usermod \ gameinfo.txt), which was mentioned in the first method, and open it. Then, again, add the Game parameter, and through Tab, write the name of the folder load - left4dead, without brackets and press Ctrl + S. It will look like this:

3) Now go to our L4D folder, I have it here (D: \ Aplications \ Games \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ left 4 dead \ left4dead) and copy some folders, look at the screen:


still need those files that are behind the folders:




Just don't need to copy * .vpk files, we don't need them!

Then we go to our left4dead folder that we created earlier, and paste the files and folders that we copied:


We will still need the sound folder (sounds \ music), but I did not copy it because it takes up a lot due to the replicas of the survivors (the sound / player folder) which I think we don’t need yet, therefore: create an empty folder with the same name in our left4dead folder. After we go to the sound of the game itself, and select the folders with sounds as it shows, after we copy the screen:



Next, go to our folder (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ sound), and paste what we copied:


4) As if everything, but in reality not yet. Now we need to unpack the content that is in files with the .vpk resolution. For this we will need a program called GCF Scape, if you do not have it you can download it here Downloaded?, Installed ?? - well young people !. Ok, after installation, you should have an association of vpk files with this program (that is, these files will be opened through it)
So. go to the (games) folder (D: \ Aplications \ Games \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ left 4 dead \ left4dead), look for and open the pak01_dir.vpk file, just double click on it. If after installing the program you did not have an association, then run it and open the file through the File-> Open menu. Opened, we see inside 3 folders (materials, models, particles):


Next, select these 3 folders, right-click on them and select the Extract item:



click, and specify our left4dead folder for unpacking:



After the extraction process goes:



after that we close the program. That's it, the content transfer process is complete!

5) We figured out the installation of the content, now we will check or we did everything right, -> Launch SFM, on the viewport, press RMB, select Load Map ... and see if our left 4 dead folder is in the filter:

If it is there, then you connected it correctly, you can even try to load some kind of map, or view the model, but the tool may crash, because the content still needs to be fixed. The fact that the content needs to be corrected say material 1 from zombies

It has a white sheen.

6) Let's start fixing the content. First, we need to do some simple manipulation of the models. You don't have to bother much,first create the model, right click on it > add overide materielas > show in element viewer > model > materials, in each of them you need to add attribute > float > and type $phongboost,

and that should remove the sheen. If it didnt work try to get l4d models from Gmod and export them in SFM, okay ...) Half of the work has already been done. Now we run to fix some materials, including that handsome zombie, well, which is with a white sheen. Go to the folder with the materials, namely (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ materials \ models \ infected \ common), and look for a file named common_infected_shared.vmt (common material file for common infected). We open this file with notepad, or any text. editor, we see:


vertexlitgeneric - the name of the shader, and its parameters in the curly arms. We bang these parameters, and save the file.



Let's check the work ...



Good job

Now we still need to fix the materials of the special infected (boomer, hunter, tank, witch, smoked, and so on.)

We do everything similarly to the previous method (with minor changes), I'll tell you how to fix it, for example ... a boomer.

We go to the folder with the boomer materials (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ materials \ models \ infected \ boomer), look for, and open the boomer.vmt file, we see:

Remove everything except the $ baseTexture parameters and
$ bumpmap.

Do the same with the hunter, tank and witch materials.

Did you ?, ok, that's all with the correction of the materials.

If during the process something did not work out for you, or you messed something up, do not worry ... you can download these files that I fixed (just delete the old folder and put the folder from the archive)

1. L4D_materials (fix) _for_SFM = {LINK REMOVED}https://www.mediafire.com/file/ba32svsglvmwifo/L4D_materials%2528fix%2529_for_SFM.rar/file

7) now the last thing we need to do is fix a couple of models, namely a couple of ragdols (survivor ragdols, and special infected ragdols)

If you try to load 1 of these models right now, this will lead to a crash, and such a wonderful file will appear))

To do this, we need, to put it mildly, an awesome NotePad text editor that has many features, including saving a file without changing the encoding - and this is what we need to fix the binary file. You can download it here, or click on the button

Let's start. I'll show you how to do this using the example of a hunter.
Go to the folder with the infected models (SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ models \ infected) and look for the hunter.mdl model itself, open it through notepad, we see the following:



we see the encrypted binary data of the model.
Pay attention to the file header:



namely, the number 1 in the IDST1 header, it must be replaced by someone - IDST,
like this:



After that, save the modified file - Ctrl + S.
These operations must be carried out with the above mentioned models. Specifically, with: (hulk.mdl, smoker.mdl, witch.mdl, boomer.mdl in the "SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ models \ infected" folder), and (survivor_teenangst.mdl, survivor_namvet.mdl, survivor_manager.mdl, survivor_biker.mdl in the "SourceFilmmaker \ game \ left4dead \ models \ survivors" folder)

If you did, then you can check:





Again, if something didn't work out in the process, or you messed something up, don't worry ... you can download these files that I fixed (just delete the old folder and put the folder from the archive)

1. L4D_models(fix)_for_SFM = {LINK REMOVED}https://www.mediafire.com/file/0lvjdaez9vshnyt/models.rar/file

That's almost all.

Now a little about the cards. In general, you can immediately use those cards that we took from l4d, but several cards have some elements, because of which SFM falls. 1st NoMercy (l4d_hospital01_apartment.bsp) is a good example, you can try to download it and you will immediately see that it crashes SFM. Not all maps cause crash, some maps load normally, and you can work on them, except that after loading the camera appears hell knows where, probably at the origin of coordinates (0,0,0) in x, y, z. Also, hideout doors are not displayed in SFM.



So I will give you my version of these maps, which I slightly corrected, which work quietly in SFM, and do not cause SFM to crash when they are loaded.

L4D_maps(fix)_for_SFM =
{LINK REMOVED}http://www.mediafire.com/file/p8vv6ia54o615pa/L4D_maps(fix)_for_SFM.rar/file

Changes:

- fixed | removed some elements on such maps as 1,3 mercy, 5 air, which led to the fall of SFM.

- Added an entity that sets the initial position of the camera in the hideout after loading the map.

- fixed shelter doors, now they are displayed.

80% of the map was fixed manually using EntEd, 20% in the hammer editor. It was very scrapped to wait for the compilation.

The fix is ​​not perfect, but I think it will work for the movie.

If this Guide helped you out leave a like and add this to your favorites (it helps a lot)

DOWNLOAD LINKS ARE IN THE COMMENTS
Models, Materials, Maps

Any questions? type in comments
Have a nice day!