Welcome to Source SDK: Mastering the Source, a featured wikibook that will help you understand and master the difficulty that is the Source SDK. This book will guide you through all aspects of Valve's Source: Software Development Kit, and help you across the road to designing, modeling, and creating new games with Source.
Overview
Welcome to the wiki book Source SDK: Mastering the Source, and most importantly, the Source SDK itself. This chapter will teach you the very basics of the Source SDK and this book concerning it.
Table of Contents
Section One: The Hammer World Editor
Chapter 1: Getting Familiar
Navigating your way through the Hammer Editor's features will take some getting use to. This chapter is going to teach you where to find all the different buttons, flips, and switches so that you know where to find something when you need it.
- The Menu Bar
- The Tool Bar
- The Four Viewports
- Selection Box
- Texture Box
- Entity Box
- VisGroups Box
- Status Bar
Chapter 2: The Basics
Time to get crack'n, this chapter will familiarize you with all of Sources shapes and editors. Don't worry, we'll only be introducing you to what kinds of materials there are, we won't be getting into any advanced editing and construction just yet.
Simple Meshes
- Blocks(squares and rectangles)
- Cylinders
- Cones
- Wedges
- Spheres
- Arches
Simple Editing
- Transform Tool
- Make Hollow
- Carve
Simple Texturing
- Texture Tool
- Texture Types
- Changing Texture size
- Multi-face Texturing
- Nodraw
Simple Entities
- Spawn Points
- Simple Lights
- Basic Props
- Prop Statics
- Prop Physics
- Prop Dynamics
- Doors
Saving and Compiling
- Saving your Map
- Compiling Basics
- Making a Skybox
- Common Compiling Errors
- Creating a Prefab
Our First House
- Making a House
- Making the Land
- House Basics
- Texturing
- House Advanced
- Furnishing our House
- Compiling our House
Chapter 3: Entities
This chapter will familiarize you with all known entities in the Hammer Editor. Entities are a critical and necessary component in all forms of Hammer level design and construction.
Point Entities
Brush Entities
Chapter 4: Advanced
Meshes and Editing
Lighting
Textures
Entities
Chapter 5: Going Pro
Half-Life 2 Mapping
Tools and techniques used specifically when mapping for Half-life 2 or it's episodes.
Entities
Counter-Strike Mapping
Tools and techniques used specifically when mapping for Counter-Strike.
Left 4 Dead Mapping
Tools and techniques used specifically when mapping for Left 4 Dead, or Left 4 Dead 2.
Common Errors
Other Help Resources
Section Two: Other Applications
Chapter 1: The Model Viewer
Chapter 2: The Face Poser
Chapter 3: ItemTest
Section Three: Documentation
Section Four: Create a Mod