Source 2013/en
The Source 2013 engine branch (also called SteamPipe branch) is the final iteration of the Orange Box engine branch. It was introduced by Valve in 2013 to replace the archaic GCF file format with the VPK format introduced in the Left 4 Dead engine branch. Major shifts in content mounting occurred, and all Valve games using the Source 2009 and Source Multiplayer engine branches were upgraded to this branch. Half-Life: Source, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast was also upgraded to this engine branch from the Source 2006 engine branch. The custom
folder was added to make modding easier and was added as a mounting path for each individual Source game.
While SteamPipe was praised for simplifying how the Source engine mounts content and including previously-unreleased Team Fortress 2 code, it also broke countless numbers of mods and worsened problems already present in the Source 2009 branch, plus causing more bugs in Half-Life: Source. It also does not have most of the features that the engine branches from the Left 4 Dead engine branch onwards had. However, the engine branch has been polished over time, with various bugs from previous Orange Box branch have been fixed (such as Dropship container gun being non-functional in Half-Life 2, NPCs eyes not blinking, etc...) and is now the main branch in use by modern non-licensed engine mods.
Source 2013 is split into two sub-branches, titled Source 2013 Singleplayer and Source 2013 Multiplayer, which replaced the Source 2009 and Source Multiplayer branches, respectively. The two sub-branches are mostly interchangeable, but they use separate codebases, and the Multiplayer branch has some features which are not available in the Singleplayer branch.
Due to the benefits provided by the Multiplayer branch's additional features (static prop lightmaps, BSP compression, more ambient cubes per visleaf, and slightly newer code), the Singleplayer branch should only be used if using a base mod such as Mapbase, or if making a single-player mod that does not modify game code.
Contents
Features
New since the Source 2009 engine branch is:
- VPK files and
custom
folder - First introduced on Left 4 Dead engine branch and onwards, it was later available on Source 2013, which replaced the old GCF format. This also adds support for reading any files from "custom" folder.
- Linux and other platform support
- The engine can now run on Linux, Android (for Nvidia Shield) and other operating systems. However, support for these OS outside of official games may be spotty.
- 64-bit binaries (only in )
- Allows the game to access more than 4GB RAM and have slightly better performance.
- Note: Team Fortress 2 64-bit is not available on Mac.
- Static prop lightmaps (only in )(also in )
- Static props without bump maps can now use lightmaps (albeit with limitations).
- Per-texel color tint masking for models
$blendtintbybasealpha
is ported from the Left 4 Dead engine branch. Source 2013 includes an exclusive additional parameter,$blendtintcoloroverbase
.- Swaying trees (only in )
- A material parameter that gives the effect of trees swaying in the wind.
- BSP compression (only in )
- BSP maps and packed files can be losslessly compressed on both server and client.
- VScript (only in )
- A powerful new scripting system primarily using Squirrel (if ), Lua (if ).
Availability
Gamecode for both the Source 2013 Multiplayer and Singleplayer branches is included in Valve's Source SDK 2013 repository.
Source 2013 Singleplayer
- Deprecates
2004
Half-Life: Source2005
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
- Deprecates
2004
Half-Life 22006
Half-Life 2: Episode One2007
Half-Life 2: Episode Two2007
Portal2013
Source SDK Base 2013 - Singleplayer
Third-Party
2022
Divinia Chronicles: Relics of Gan-Ti2019
Mapbase2015
Half-Life 2: Update (earlier version)- More...
Source 2013 Multiplayer
- Deprecates
2014
Source SDK Base 2013 - Multiplayer2004
Counter-Strike: Source2005
Day of Defeat: Source2004
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch2007
Team Fortress 2
Third-party
2013
Counter-Strike Online 22016
BrainBread 22014
Fistful of Frags2008
Empires2009
Obsidian Conflict- More...
- Deprecates
2008
Zombie Panic! Source[confirm]
Third-party Source 2013 branches
The following games use neither nor , but rather use custom (heavily modified) branches forked earlier versions from both Source 2013 branches, with newer features added on. As such, they may or may not include all features from newer first-party versions of Source 2013, such as LZMA-compressed BSPs or lightmapped MDLs.
2006
Garry's Mod (which also support some features from Alien Swarm, Portal 2 engine branch and onwards, such as partial VTF 7.5 support; formerly , )2015
Black Mesa (branch also known as Xengine, formerly )