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[Updated Guide] Garry's Mod to SFM - The Quick & Easy Way...

By Capt Fuzzy

Here's another in my "updated" series, where I try to bring some of the older guides out there into the 21st century.
Without further ado, here's how to port GMOD assets to Source Filmmaker, the quick & easy way...

NOTE: Please DO NOT ask me to port GMOD assets for you because you don't have Garry's Mod or you are "too lazy" to do it yourself.
I WILL NOT do it, under any circumstances, so save both of us some aggravation, DON'T ASK.
If you are going to use SFM then this is a 'necessary skill' to have. If you don't want to learn how to do it then maybe SFM is not for you.
Garry's Mod routinely goes on sale from time to time and the price is usually more than reasonable considering the sheer amount of assets on the GMOD workshop that you will then have access to.

Award

Created by

Capt Fuzzy
Online

Category: Modding or Configuration, Workshop

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

7 Dec, 2016 @ 9:26am

26 Apr @ 7:58am

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Guide Index

Overview

What You Will Need...

Preparation

The Guide

Step-by-step - For those who can't keep up with the video guide...

Related Useful Guides

Comments

What You Will Need...

Source Filmmaker
Garry's Mod
Knowledge of how to 'copy/paste' items in Windows
Knowledge of how to Subscribe to assets in the GMOD Workshop

Preparation

Install Source Filmmaker (If you haven't already)
Install Garry's Mod (If you haven't already)

The Guide

In this video guide, I will walk you through what needs to be done to get your GMOD assets into SFM, start to finish, so pay attention, this isn't that hard folks...

There ya have it!
Garry's Mod assets into Source Filmmaker.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions below and I will try and help you as best as I can.

Step-by-step - For those who can't keep up with the video guide...

Here's how to do this, step-by-step

Subscribe to the assets that you want in the Garry's Mod workshop.
NOTE: You must own Garry's Mod to do this part!
Run Garry's Mod and allow the assets that you subbed to download.
Close Garry's Mod.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your Garry's Mod install.
Typically, it's located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod.
If you haven't done this yet, open the bin folder and locate gmad.exe. Copy (DO NOT DRAG & DROP) gmad.exe to the GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons folder.
Open the GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons folder and this is where you will find the .gma file for the asset that you subbed and downloaded from the workshop.

UPDATED ASSET LOCATION
Garry's Mod has recently updated it's storage location for downloaded assets.
Sometimes its stored in a separate folder, go to the addon after subscribing copy the addon ID from the URL and open your file browser, instead of going to common\garrysmod\addons You actually go to workshop\content\4000\[Addon ID here] it should have the .gma file, if not its either still downloading or in the common\garrysmod\addons folder. (Thanks to Joose_2005 for the updated location)
Drag & drop the .gma file on gmad.exe, a console window will open briefly, when it closes, the extraction is complete and you should now have a folder with the exact same name as the .gma file that you just extracted.
Open this folder, inside there should be two (2) folders: materials and models.
There may be others there as well, but for SFM, we need ONLY the materials and models folders, nothing else.
Select both the models and materials folders and right-click on one of them and select Copy.
Navigate to your SFM install, typically located in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SourceFilmmaker and open the folder named game.
In this folder, create a new folder and name it garrysmod. Right-click on this folder and select Paste. Your GMOD model should now be installed in SFM.

But we aren't quite finished, there's one more thing to do, enable your new folder.
Open your Steam Library and make sure to select 'Software' at the top of the list.
NOTE: Source Filmmaker is NOT a game, it's software, so it doesn't show-up in the 'Games' list, only the 'Software' list.
Right-click Source Filmmaker and select 'Launch SDK'.
Select 'Edit Path for Selected Mod'.
This will open a window with a list of check boxes, near the bottom of the list, you should find the garrysmod folder that you made earlier with a blank check box next to it. Put a check in the box and you are done. Your garrysmod folder is now enabled in SFM.

Some people will tell you to just drop your new models in the usermod folder, however, I strongly recommend that you DO NOT DO THIS. The usermod folder is a key system folder for SFM and some models may conflict with the default files within the usermod folder. This can cause SFM to "break" and the only fix for this is typically a full re-install of Source Filmmaker.

There you have it, enjoy your GMOD assets in SFM!!

Related Useful Guides

Here's a couple of useful guides related to this one by Pte Jack...

Sometimes when you install a model, the textures don't show up, all you get is this pink and black checkerboard thing. This can be caused by several different things, but mainly it means that the textures aren't where SFM is looking for them.
This guide will show you how to find and fix these issues:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1226795892

There are times when installing a model from the internet, that the model, for whatever reason, doesn't "show" correctly. This is usually due to the materials for that model not being located correctly for SFM. This guide shows you how to fix this issue:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1226526147

302 Comments

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Capt Fuzzy [author] 3 hours ago

If SFM won't restart after a PC reboot, when it was working before the reboot, then the problem is most likely with the PC itself and not necessarily with SFM.
As 64 bit technology advances, this makes 32 bit programs more and more incompatible and obsolete.
I have no idea why you felt that you had to reboot your entire PC, so the best I could do at this point is guess.
More details would certainly be helpful here.

Sonic The Hedgehog 12 hours ago

hey so i tried rebotting my pc restarting sfm will not appear, any advice?

nacroni 3 Jul @ 9:14am

I gotta say, this guide is probably a godsend to people switching to SFM for animations and don't know how to get their Garry's Mod maps, models, and others into SFM.

nacroni 3 Jul @ 9:12am

By the way, if the file is a ".bin" file, you can use 7-Zip to open the bin file, extract the file inside, and add the file extension name ".gma" to the extracted file. Then, you can extract the .gma file the same way you normally extract it. You can also use VPKEdit to open .gma files too!

Capt Fuzzy [author] 17 Jun @ 11:37am

That is actually more common than you might think.
SFM is an old, 32 bit program, and as such, has common '32 bit problems' that generally aren't seen in today's 64 bit computing world.
There are a number of ways to 'fix' this, but they depend largely on the exact circumstances surrounding when the file save was attempted.

guest606 17 Jun @ 9:43am

Thanks for this guide it worked great. Although, it hits me with the "document was not saved because there was an error writing the file" when I try to save a sfm with any of the gmod ports in it.
I couldn't find anyone else in the comments with this problem so it might be something new.

Capt Fuzzy [author] 1 Jun @ 9:20am

Make a custom folder for just these cars.
Put the base pack in the same directory as the cars addon.
If they are both in the same main directory, they should work as intended.

Walker5514 31 May @ 11:52am

hey bro, I want to port the TDM Cars models (Gmod addon) to source filmmaker, however, the addon needs a secondary addon (base pack) to work and load the models' textures correctly. I'm confused and lost, I don't know which SFM folder to put the TDM base pack of TDM cars in, whether both addons will have to go together to the custom folder or to the usermod folder and which directory to go to, whether it's in materials or models. Can you help me with this?

Capt Fuzzy [author] 26 Apr @ 7:59am

Thank you for pointing that out.
It is now corrected.

MA:78 25 Apr @ 7:25am

no Capt Fuzzy, there's an extra folder to it. The directory you instructed technically doesn't exist because the content folder comes before the 4000

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