Approaching five years since the game's launch, Valve has at long last released the last of their popular character videos for Team Fortress 2, introducing the most enigmatic of the classes with Meet the Pyro

The masked arsonist known only as "Pyro" has always been the most unknowable of the Team Fortress mercenaries. Until now. Today the mask comes off. Metaphorically. That's right: It's time to Meet the Pyro.

Making the long wait worth it however, they gone one further and launched Source Filmmaker, opening the door to the community and Source-Engine mod teams to construct their own such movies using game assets. It's currently in closed beta, just like Dota 2 and Global Ops, it seems like it shouldn't be too hard for anybody interested enough to get a look in.

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. 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. By utilizing 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.

Watch the Meet the Pryo video below (or here in our HD video library) and head over to Sourcefilmmaker.com for more details, including how to get in on the beta.

wish i had audio here and work so i could watch it :(

Wow, I never knew they actually filmed those videos in the source engine, I always thought they had a really good CG animation team & just imported the assets into Max / Maya or whatever.

Also, I want that hippy flamethrower :)

That was really funny.

Also, I want that hippy flamethrower :)

something tells me it'll turn up

Meet the Medic was the best one, but this was pretty funny. I lost it when it went into the happy land view. Was kiiiinda expecting them to put to bed that whole "pyro is a girl" thing. Though really I think they just did since if that's how he sees everything it's no wonder he had a pink bag.

The custom taunt it comes with is rather insane, large AOE & can kill multiple enemies through gates :P

'Modern' Meet the Heavy -

this is some very cool shit

i've just done a 3d modeling subject the semester just gone, we did the modeling in CAD and then brought it into 3ds max to add animation.

having done a very small bit of work with animation in 3ds max i can appreciate that video a lot more

This could actually be a really cool tool for building animatics... For the video makers out thur.