VMT

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Creating a Material. (Discuss)

A material is what the Source engine uses to define which textures (.vtf) and shaders (function which defines how materials are rendered to the screen) are used on a surface (models, world surfaces, sprites, etc). This information is stored in a Valve Material (.vmt) file.

Summary of creating materials

Here is a brief summary of the steps necessary to create a material for the Source engine:

1. Create the source texture as a valid targa (.tga) image (using graphics software such as MSPaint).
2. (Optional) Write the compile parameters for Vtex to use.
3. Use the Vtex tool to compile the targa image into a Valve Texture File (.vtf).
4. Create a Valve Material (.vmt) file, where you refer to the Valve Texture File (.vtf) you've created. (See below.)
5. Launch the Hammer editor (or model viewer) and check that the new material works properly.

See Also

• Shader Types and Parameters
• Half-Life 2 Shader Fallbacks
• Normal Maps
• Reflective Materials
• Parallax mapping
• Third Party Tools

External links

• Creating materials with transparency in Paint Shop Pro -
  Todo: Old akg link that doesn't work. Update, please!