Entity

An object defined within Source or Source 2 as having characteristics which differentiate it from "the world" (world brushes).

Types of entities

Types	available in	Info
By Form
Brush entity	Source and earlier	A Brush Entity is an entity type in the GoldSrc and Source engines, created by tying an entity to a BSP geometry brush in the map, giving the brush a specific effect or ability defined by the entity tied to it. (The default shortcut is Ctrl + T after selecting a brush)
Point entity	Source and Source 2	Point Entities are entities created at a specific position point on the grid. Some require a model to be selected for them in order to function fully.
Mesh entity	Only in Source 2	Mesh entities available only in Source 2. Mesh entities replace the Source brush entities. Since Source 2 no longer uses BSP brushes, entities that need to be associated with geometry are now tied to Hammer meshes instead.
Path entity		Path entities are a type of entity recently added to the tools. They can be created with the currently hidden Path Tool (Shift + P).
By Internality
Internal entity	In all Engines	Internal entities are those which are processed by VBSP then either deleted or merged into another entity. They do not exist when the map is running, so they won't count to the entity limit. Internal entities get special treatment by the map compile tools and are removed from the final product, usually stored in a special chunk.
Non-Internal entity		A non-internal entity is not processed by VBSP and remains as a separate entity. These are typically interactive objects or characters that the player can interact with or that affect gameplay.

Limitations

For reasons of memory allocation, there is a limit to the number of entities GoldSrc/ Source/ Source 2 can manage at once.

The combined size (in bytes) of a map's entity data should also be considered, even if the number of entities is within safe limits. Large amounts of entdata can take a noticeably long time to transmit from server to client, and may lead to crashes.

For more info, see Entity limit.

See also

• Category:Entities
• Adding Point Entities (part of a series of tutorials)
• Creating Brush Entities (ditto)
• Entity creation (a quick reference)
• Entities in Depth
• List of Entities
• Coding Your First Entity
• Console command dump_entity_sizes
• Constraint
• preserved entity
• Void