Introduction to Half Life 2 Modding

1
Introduction to Half Life 2 Modding

• Seminar Five The Texturiser
• The story so far
• Creating a mod via Source SDK
• Introduction to Hammer
• Basic Hammer techniques
• Advanced Hammer techniques
• This week
• Importing custom textures for use in maps
• Homework
• Further work with custom textures

2
The 'Valve' way

• SDK provided tool Vtex.exe
• Vtex used to convert TGA files into VTF files
• Command line tool
• Basic usage vtex.exe texture_source.tga
• Uses the source directory to position final VTF
  files
• i.e. if texture_source.tga is in
  materialsrc\walls\, texture_source.vtf will be
  created in materials\walls.
• Can also be used to generate VMT files.

3
The Easy way

• Use a Photoshop plugin
• Nem's VTF Plugin
• nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c154
• Allows VTF generation via Save As dialogue (see
  right).
• Faster and Easier than VTex!

4
Creating a VMT

• Each VTF requires a matching VMT
• VMT files describe what shader and properties the
  VTF is rendered with.
• VMT files are simple text files with a specific
  format.
• The format of the VMT is as follows
• Shader declaration
• LightMappedGeneric and VertexLitGeneric are
  the most common shader types used.
• Parameter declarations
• baseTexture is a requirement for majority of
  shaders

5
Example VMT
"lightmappedgeneric" // shader parameter //
diffuse texture (vtf file) "baseTexture"
"wall/ds_wall_metal_hullplate01" // surface
type for hit impacts "surfaceprop" "metal"
// normal map (also a vtf) "bumpmap"
"wall/ds_wall_metal_hullplate01_normal" //
tells engine to use env_cubemap output "envmap"
"env_cubemap" // env mask is taken from base
map alpha "basemapalphaenvmapmask" 1 //
dictates env map contrast / saturation "envmapco
ntrast" 1 // RGB value, controls level of
reflection "envmaptint" ".25 .25 .25"