XBLAH's Modding Tool

XBLAH's Modding Tool is a tool written by XBLAH to improve Valve games modders productivity and quality of life.

Modding

New Mod

Mods can be created based on Half-Life and Half-Life 2 games using an intuitive interface, that creates all the required files and directories.

This can be accessed through Modding > New.

• When creating Half-life 2 mods, it will replace the default font file so all letters are available, since the stock font file only contains the letters that make Half-Life.
• When creating Mapbase mods, it will include Thexa's PBR Shaders by default.

File Explorer

All the files mounted into the game info can be previewed in the File Explorer. The File Explorer replaces the GFCScape as the ultimate file browsing tool, since it will mount all the VPKs and loose files according to the game info, to show the modder a compreensive list of files. This relieves the modder of having to browse vpks individually, and the integrated features of the tool usually dismisses the necessity of extracting the files from the vpks, since they can be accessed natively.

This can be accessed through Modding > File Explorer.

The File Explorer contains context menus for each file, targeting them to their respective native editor.

Clean mod

Before shipping the mod, the tool provides the modder with a list of unnecessary files, which can be removed with the push of a button.

This can be accessed through Modding > Clean.

Game info

The mod information can be edited through a comprehensive UI without requiring the modder to mess with text files.

This can be accessed through Modding > Game info.

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  Name

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  Options

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  Steam games list

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  Engine and tools

Chapters

Chapters for single-player games can be created through an UI. The modder can easily create new chapters, select the chapter images, chapter background images, the first map of the chapter, the background map, and the tool will do the dirty work of creating the required vtfs, vmts and scripts. It gives the option to automatically blur the background images, so the modder can just take a screenshot of the background map and the tool will apply the usual blur. This replaces the need of saving VTFs, creating chapter images with weird proportions, and so on.

External links

• XBLAH's Modding Tool Homepage