VRAD++

VBSP++ ▶ VVIS++ ▶ VRAD++

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VRAD++

Developer(s)

ficool2

Initial release

Jul 10, 2025

Stable release

Oct 26, 2025

Operating system

Type

Map compiler

Target engine(s)

Distribution

Freeware

Download

Download

VRAD++ is a community-made modification of Source's VRAD developed by ficool2.

Differences

• Scales up to 64 threads
• Small performance optimizations
• Shared LDR/HDR compiling:
  • When using -both, LDR lighting data will be redirected to HDR at no extra file size cost
  • This means you don't need to compile VRAD twice for LDR and HDR users anymore (compatible with both)
  • Passing in -ldr or -hdr will still explicitly compile in LDR or HDR mode only, respectively
  • HDR data will not be remapped if LDR data is already present
  • Therefore if you need different LDR and HDR lighting, compile with -ldr and -hdr separately
• Bypassed "numplanes + fakeplanes >= MAX_MAP_PLANES" limit
• Added AppID mounting in gameinfo.txt
• Added ambient occlusion baking
  • Custom implementation that is an order of magnitude faster than AO in Slammin/CS:GO (!)
  • Set -ambientocclusion to enable this
  • Customize with -aoradius, -aoscale, -aopropsamples, -aofacesamples
  • Samples are automatically adjusted for -fast and -final mode
  • Default AO radius and scale is 32 units and 0.5 respectively
• Added -reflectivityscale
• Added -worldtextureshadows
  • Allows $alphatest brush textures to cast proper shadows like props
• Added -translucentshadows
• Improved vertex lighting for props
  • Added -StaticPropIndirectMode to use old behavior if desired
• Fixed maps with more than 13 million triangles taking a very, very long time to compile
• Redundant vertex lighting is skipped for lightmapped props (saves compile time and file size)
• .dx90.vtx data is loaded for vertex lighting instead of .dx80.vtx
• Broken vertex data for props will now be skipped over when compiling
• Fixed bug where broken vertex data in props skipped vertex lighting for other props
• Named or styled lights are now sorted by brightness priority for faces
  • Reduces occurence of bad lighting from overlapping named/styled lights
• Added -scale, -ambient, -dlight, -sky, -notexscale, -coring debug options
• Unlimited texlight support in .rad files
• Comments in .rad files are now skipped
• Cleaned up formatting of some messages and warnings

Supported games

VRAD++ is currently available for all games on Team Fortress 2 branch.

External links

• Download