Hi All-
Included in the updates of TF2, Portal, and HL2:Ep2 are the binaries for the particle editor, the commentary editor, and the materials editor. I'm still working on an SDK update that includes a convenient way to launch the tools as well as some example particles and commentary files, but in the interim you can run any of the three games with '-tools' in the launch options and access the new tools. More documentation is on the way, but here is some general information to help get you started checking out the tools: 1. These three tools run in the same process as the engine and you can switch between the tools. 2. The F10 button changes context between playing the game in the 'Engine Viewport' window and editing content via the current tool. 3. In the lower left corner is an input field that allows the user to dispatch console commands to the game while working with the tools. 4. Particle systems are defined in .pcf files that are located in the 'particles' subdirectory beneath the game directory. You should extract some of the TF2, Portal, or Ep2 particle files from the game caches if you would like to see some examples. The SDK update will include example particles. 5. Commentary node information is stored in text files in the games' 'maps' subdirectory and the established naming convention is <map_name>_commentary.txt. Again, you can extract these files from our shipping games to check out the editor ahead of the SDK update and example nodes. 6. The material editor is a GUI front-end and preview tool that provides a more convenient way of tweaking materials settings. You can extract VMT files from our shipping games or those from your own mods to check it out. I'm sure that there will be lots of questions and I'll do my best to answer them quickly. I'm looking update the SDK either tomorrow or Wednesday which will give you guys some more examples as well as make launching the engine tools more consistent with our other tools. -Best, Mike _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
