Making an animation is not easy and will take a lot of time believe me, I have 400+ hours and I am still a noob, the best things you can do is watch valve's tutorial or tutorials of Zachariah Scott but time is required to get better there is no alternative. Low FPS? I have the same problem, it's because our computers ain't made for this kind of stuff. SFM is a heavy software and requires processor of 3 ghz and I gues 6 GB RAM ... Best thing you can do is switch of the lights by right mouse click and turn of the lights. Sorry if I can't help you with your third problem

Hi,

1. ANY good animation will take a solid amount of time. Your best bet to learn how the SFM works is to watch Zachariah Scott's tutorials and official Valve tutorials. Learning animation in general can be achieved through different chanels and websites across the internet as well.

2. Animation/working programs usually requite a pretty hefty rig to use.

3. What you're referring to is possibly ambient occlusion doing its work. AKA soft shadows, they apply... well, soft shadows in the final render. This is very intensive for a computer, however, and it's best you disable it by right clicking your viewport and ticking render settings.

Hope I could help.

Thanks to both of you, I will start watching the videos mentioned