Source SDK
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|
| Source SDK | |
|---|---|
| Original author(s) | |
| Developer(s) |
Valve Corporation |
| Operating system(s) |
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 |
| Platform(s) |
PC |
| Available in |
English |
| Development status |
Active |
| Type | |
| Website | |
- "When you rely on game technology as well-established as the Source engine, your mod's team's time and effort can be spent building creative gameplay and unique content rather than on things like rendering technology or network code or collision detection."
- ―Valve Development Community[[src]]
The Source SDK is a collection of programs, including a map editor, for designing maps and modifications for games that use Valve's Source engine.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The Source SDK contains many programs useful for editing Source engine-based games, such as Half-Life 2. It also contains the source code for Half-Life 2, which can be used as a base for creating mods.
Currently, the SDK supports two versions of the Source engine; the version used in Half-Life 2: Episode One and the one used in The Orange Box's games. Other games that use the Source engine use their own versions of the SDK, such as the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools
[edit] Tools
The SDK is made up of various tools, some of which are accessible from a menu. The major tools are listed below:
[edit] Face Poser
Face Poser is the tool used to access facial animations and choreography systems.
This tool allows one to:
- Edit facial expressions, gestures and movements for characters (which are called actors), allowing one to mix or blend several expressions on the fly.
- Lip synch speech with the speech the characters use (and blend the speech with other facial expressions). The phonemes used for lip-synching can be extracted from existing spoken .wav files, the tool taking care of the real-time association between the spoken phonemes and the movements of the lips.
- Sequence expressions and other acting cues and preview what the scene will look like in the game engine. A scene can refer to multiple actors and thus can be used to block out fairly complicated interactions and dialogue between game characters.
[edit] Model Viewer
The Model Viewer is a program that allows users to view models.
The Model Viewer can be used for a variety of different purposes, including developing. Developers may use the program to view models and their corresponding animations, attachment points, bones, and so on. It can also be used to view props, weapons, buildings, and just about any other 3D object found except something which is a brush (an object created in Hammer that makes up the actual world - something like a floor, wall, room, skybox or terrain), the Model Viewer can't view game textures either (Hammer is used for that purpose instead).
[edit] Map Editor
[edit] Other tools
The SDK also contains tools that can only be accessed by going into the "Steam\steamapps\(username)\sourcesdk\bin" folder. Some of these tools include studiomdl, which is used for creating models to be used in Source games, bspzip, which packs content only used in a certain map, such as models, into the map's .bsp file and vtex.exe, which converts images into textures usable by the Source engine.
[edit] Trivia
- In the Half-Life 2 Beta, tools used in Half-Life, such as the Half-Life Dedicated Server, are mixed in with the tools used in the final Source SDK.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- SourceMod - Script wrapper and extension to the Source SDK for game server plugins
