Source SDK release notes archive

Version 1.07.00

New SDK and Hammer Editor Features

Added support for HDR

• Support for HDR map compiles in Normal and Expert build dialogs.
  • See HDR Lighting Basics for information on how to add HDR to maps.
  • If you've previously added your own Expert build settings, you must delete your sourcesdk/bin/CmdSeq.wc file and Refresh SDK Content to get the new Expert build settings. Note: This will delete and replace any previously saved Expert build settings!
  • HDR content creation is currently supported in:
    • Day of Defeat: Source
    • Counter-Strike: Source
    • Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
  • Support for Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch will be added in a future update.

Day of Defeat: Source support

• Added Day of Defeat: Source entity definitions.
• A game configuration is created if DoD:Source is installed.

New VGUI model browser

• VGUI Model browser with substring filtering, 3D preview, and reference grid to indicate the size of the model.Camera controls are:
  • left mouse: rotate
  • right mouse: zoom
  • middle mouse or SHIFT: translate
• Added option "Use VGUI model browser" under Tools->Options->General. Unchecking this option reverts to the old model browser.

2D and 3D View enhancements

• Models and Displacements are now rendered in the 2D views.
• 2D views are now rendered using the Source material system.
• Added new toolbar option to enable model rendering in 2D views.
• Added real-time preview of object transformations in all views. Old state of manipulated object is drawn as wireframe, new state as textured.
• 2D views now center on selected objects after view type switch.
• Optimized 2D view rendering.
• Hammer now renders 2D and 3D views only on demand, not as fast as possible.
• Added new "Shaded Textured Polygons" 3D view mode to hammer.
• Hammer disables antialiasing by default.

Auto Visgroups improvements

• Added many new Auto-visgroup categories.
• Created a separate tab for Autovisgroups in the Filter dialog.
• Disallowed users changing Autovisgroup membership, deleting Autovisgroups, etc.
• Objects that are loaded in a hidden state without being in a user visgroup will throw an alert message and ill be placed in a User visgroup named "_orphaned hidden".
• Objects hidden by a user-created visgroup can no longer be made visible by the actions of the auto visgroup.
• Filter dialog is now resizable when undocked.

Paste Special Enhancements

• "Make entity names unique" appends numbers to pasted entity names to ensure that the names are unique in the map. Doesn't change the name of entities with no name to begin with.
• "Add this prefix to entity names" adds a user-defined prefix to all pasted entities that have names.
• Both of these options fix up I/O connections and inter-entity references, and the options can be used independently of each other.
• Paste Special is now invoked with Ctrl-Shift-V.

New Autosave feature

• Autosave options are located in Tools->Options->General:
  • Time between autosaves in minutes.
  • Amount of hard drive space to use for autosaves in megabytes.
  • Max number of autosaves per file.
  • Option for user-specified autosave directory.
  • On crash recovery, Hammer prompts user to load last saved file.

Other new features

• Added model fade distance preview, enabled via a new toolbar button. This does not support screen space fades yet—only distance fades.
• Added a button to radius keyvalues to set the field's value to the current distance from the camera.
• Added a button for Texture Lock While Scaling to the tool bar.
• Overlay scale operation now supports texture lock off.
• Optimized speed of Paste & Clone operations.
• Selection tool no longer toggles through objects when holding the left mouse button down, use PageUp/PageDown keys instead.
• Check For Problems now reports Overlay problems, such as overlays with invalid face lists.
• Hammer now reports its Steam search paths in the Messages window on startup.
• Can no longer have multiple instances of a map open in hammer. Fixes user confusion regarding which map is being edited causing data loss.
• Find/Replace dialog now allows you to change the inputs mid-search.
• Newly created game configurations now default to a texture scale of 0.25 instead of 1.0.
• Sprites (env_sprite) are now browsed using the material browser.

Bug fixes

Hammer Editor

• Fixed "too many indices for index buffer" crash in complex maps.
• Fixed crash when cloning an object that had only a number as name.
• Fixed crash when splitting displacements using the clipper tool.
• Fixed crash when moving map overlays.
• Fixed a crash when failing to load some material headers.
• Fixed a crash in Hammer caused by minimizing it and maximizing it.

• Fixed right-click to create point entities not working in the 2D view.
• Fixed entity spawnflags being wiped when selecting multiple entities of different classes
• Fixed Undo of a face attributes change putting the face in an indeterminate "selected but not" state.
• Fixed face attributes changes unnecessarily creating multiple undo stack events.
• Fixed vcd file browser using *.jpg as the file filter.
• Fixed visgroup expanded/collapsed state being lost on visgroup changes.
• Dragging a hidden child visgroup into its hidden parent (to merge the visgroups) no longer incorrectly shows the children after the merge.
• Fixed auto visgroups not being assigned for objects belonging to groups.
• The current tab in Object Properties dialog no longer resets when switching between model entities and other point entities.
• Fixed material system state corruption after hitting Cancel when exiting Hammer with unsaved documents.
• Fixed hit testing bug which caused unexpected handle misses when resizing brushes, etc.
• Fixed performance problems with the Entity Properties dialog when selecting objects in large/complex maps.
• Fixed info_node_link node ID references being broken after a cut & paste.
• Fixed objects becoming permanently hidden by deleting their visgroup while it is hidden.
• Fixed creating an object while the autovisgroup it would belong to is hidden causing the autovisgroup and all of its members to become visible.

• Fixed displacement map flipping.
• Limited primitive sphere max faces to 16x16, to not exceed solid maxfaces.
• Fixed crash in vertex tool.
• Fixed block tool creating blocks that were 1 unit smaller than the previous selection.
• Fixed double clicks not being processed correctly by tools.

• Fixed black model rendering under DX7.
• Updated cstrike.fgd to fix error models when placing Counter-strike player starts.
• Updated halflife2.fgd to fix incorrect model references on item_ammo_ar2 and item_ammo_ar2_large.
• Fixed flipping solids with subdivided displacement maps.
• Removed unused displacement map feature "Auto-Subdivide".
• Fixed problems selecting objects when switching between documents.
• Increased performance of Carve tool.
• Fixed deleting a custom configuration not actually deleting the config.
• Fixed several crash cases.
• Fixed loading old .RMF map files (existing visgroups will be discarded).
• Fixed the incorrect URL when choosing Help->Help Topics.

• Fixed move_rope having empty choices list for Position Interpolator.
• Fixed sporadic crash creating move_rope entities.
• Fixed infinite error dialogs when entering invalid values into the arch creation dialog.
• Fixed Hammer loading maps as start parameter, also parameters like "-dxlevel 81" work again.
• Fixed parent visgroup incorrectly reflecting child's visibility.

Hlmv/FacePoser

• Fixed ranged flexcontrollers not displaying correctly.
• Fixed incorrect bone count being displayed.
• Fixed eyes not always tracking the user.

SDK Launcher/VConfig

• Fixed directory selection browser dropdown menu.
• Redirected all URLs to point to developer.valvesoftware.com
• Default game configurations are only generated for applications which are subscribed to.

Version 1.06.00

• Added a new Half-Life 2 Multiplayer example character model, found under <Steam>\SteamApps\username\sourcesdk_content\hl2mp\modelsrc\humans_sdk.
• Fix in lag compensation code sometimes preventing players from respawning correctly.
• Optimized bandwidth usage in mods based upon the hl2mp code.
  • Programmers who have already started mods should integrate these files into their source code (or handle it automatically using the method described in the Using Source Control With The Source SDK document):
    • src\cl_dll\c_baseanimatingoverlay.cpp
    • src\dlls\baseanimatingoverlay.cpp
    • src\dlls\player_lagcompensation.cpp
• Fixed some cases of having to run the base game before being able to debug your mod.
• Fixed xwad running vtex incorrectly.
• Fixed xwad building into the wrong target directory.

Version 1.05.00

• Added snow and rain sprite materials for func_precipitation entity.
• Added bonus snow world materials.
• Added qc_eyes.exe.
• Made various improvements and fixes to FGD files. Full list of changes listed here.
  Todo: Link Here to There
• Added a new example character model, found under <Steam>\SteamApps\username\sourcesdk_content\hl2\modelsrc\humans_sdk.
• Added new documentation on Creating Characters.
• Updated the Authoring Shaders document.
• Added more in-depth shader examples, including a postprocess shader. After installing the source code, look under src\sdkshaders and src\sdkshaders\advanced for the new shader code.
• Added qc eyes - a tool to generate the QC text necessary to get eyes working. The executable is called qc_eyes.exe.
• Added Motion Mapper - a tool to map animations across differently-proportioned skeletons. The executable is called MotionMapper.exe.
• Added a document describing how to use Source Control to merge Valve code changes into your MOD easily.
• Fixed an issue in Vrad which was causing visible artifacts when lighting very large objects/areas.
• Fixed an issue in Studiomdl which was allowing bad $modelnames to be used.
• Fixed the "cordon" texture used by Hammer.
• Fixed problems with dedicated server and hl2mp MODs.

Version 1.04.00

• Source code for Half-Life 2 multiplayer included. Run the 'Create a Mod' link in the SDK launcher to get it.
• Ability to create new shaders. See Authoring Shaders In Source for documentation.
• New tool (source code included) called DemoTool.exe, which shows the high-level structure of .dem files.
• Source code for Source Model Viewer included (in src\utils\hlmviewer).
• Source for Half-Life 2's airboat model included.
• Steam account names with ".." in them work in the tools.
• Fixed Face Poser flex sliders.
• Hammer limits framerate in 3D views to 300fps, to help customers with overheating problems.

Version 1.03.00

• Sources for six Half-Life 2 maps. They can be found under sourcesdk_content\hl2\mapsrc.
• XSI addon for importing and exporting SMD files.
• Sample bot for the server DLL. See Creating Server-Side Bots for more information.
• Sample bot code for plugins.
• Added bspzip tool.
• VBSP now automatically generates data for multiplayer Linux servers.
• Fixed SDK Launcher window consuming large amounts of system resources on certain machines.

Version 1.02.00

• Simplified directory structure.
• Face Poser application added.
• VConfig added, new tool to select game configurations.
• A "Reset Game Configurations" option has been added to the SDK Launcher.
• The Hammer Options dialog now reflects the selected Current Game.
• Added default Expert compile settings in Hammer.
• Viewmodel sources for Half-Life 2 included.
• Simplified debugging under Steam - no need to copy steam.dll and make steamapp.cfg.
• Added sdk.fgd, containing the entities in the programming tutorial.
• SDK Launcher startup time is much faster.
• Fixed issue with Hammer not copying .bsp to game directory.
• The buildcubemaps console command should now function correctly.
• The impulse 81 command to check cubemap placement should now function correctly.
• Fixed for various cases of path environment variables not working.
• Fixed detail props not being generated by vbsp.exe.

Version 1.01.00

• The ability to edit Half-Life 2 levels and custom MODs.
• Includes all the game source code for Half-Life 2 and a sample multiplayer mod (run Create a Mod in the SDK Launcher to install).
• Source code for the compile tools.
• Documentation on programming for the Source Engine.
• Additional documentation on content creation.
• A number of additional sample maps.
• Sample models.
• A Source Engine model exporter for Maya.

Version 1.00.00

The first version of the Source SDK included the Source Engine tools (Hammer, Model Viewer, etc) and work-in-progress documentation. The tools allowed creation of Counter-Strike Source maps, models, and materials.