Modding Sites

This is a list of links to external sites dealing with creating Mods with the Source Engine.

General Sites

This is a list of external modding related sites that do not quite fit into any specific category.

• Official Source SDK Forums and the now-defunct VERC Network Forums
• Game Design Theory - Interesting for art directors, team leaders
• Gamedesign.net - Some helpful modding and mapping tutorials (broken site)
• GamesModding.com Tutorial Database (Down) archived version - A list of almost every Half-Life 2 modding tutorial out there.
• HL2World.com - Half-Life 2 Knowledge Base
• Interlopers.net - News and general resources
• Mapcore - A great place to get mapping, modeling and texture help from industry pros.
• Mod Database - Free listings of mods for almost every moddable game. A great database full of tons of information on mods that are out there.
• Nem's Tools - Several useful Source tools including GCFScape
• SourceWiki Forums - (Main site now closed)
• The RaZZeR App Tutorials/Tools about Source engine development.
• Type 3 Studios - Mods, Maps, Tutorials, Forums, and a thorough community site on the way.
• Wavelength - One of the original sources of HL1 editing material, now steadily servicing HL2
• Wunderboy.org - Several useful Source tools including VTFTool
• ZeqMacaw's Tidbits - Contains tutorials about more advanced stuff for L4D2
• sourcemodding - An Attempt to preserve the modding legacy of Goldsrc, Source and Source 2.

Mapping Sites

Mapping sites

Programming Sites

This article may contain broken links. These broken links can still be accessed by using Web Archive (web.archive.org), and inserting the link into the field provided on that site, then selecting a year that provides the most information on that site.

This is a list of sites relating to programming and extra (communities), covering both general and HL2/Source SDK specific topics.

The following sites are unaffiliated with this wiki, and Valve and the VDC are not responsible for their content.

General

• Microsoft Developer Network
• DevX
• Tech books for free
• thefreecountry
• The Code Project
• Dev Articles
• Code Beach
• Dev Shed Forums
• Stack Overflow - a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers
• dreamincode
• daniweb - IT Discussion Community - Software Programming with sample code and tutorials
• objectmix - Application Development Forum
• programmingtalk.com - a programming, coding, and design oriented community
• Learn-Programming.za.net
• codingforums
• developerFusion
• Bytes - IT / Dev Knowledge Shared
• Stanford University's course channel on YouTube
• Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) course channel on YouTube
• UC Berkeley course channel on YouTube
• University of New South Wales (UNSW) course channel on YouTube

Game Programming

• OpenGL.org - official site for OpenGL information
• NVIDIA Developer Zone - OpenGL, DirectX, PhysX, and CUDA resourses
• AMD Developer Central - Resources for GPU programming and development
• Intel Developer Center
• Directx C++ - Documentation for Unmanaged Directx.
• Directx Managed - Documentation for Managed Directx.
• Managed Directx Info - Includes various resources, tools, samples, code snippets for Managed Directx.
• GameProgrammer.org - Resources on OpenGL and DirectX game programming
• Gamedev.net - Website with a lot of useful resources for game developers.
• oZone3D.Net - Tutorials and resources for OpenGL, DirectX and LUA programming
• DevMaster.net - General game development news and coding resouces
• Game Programming Wiki - programming tutorials and source code for a variety of languages and platforms

Half-Life specific

• Mattie's Eventscripts - Great for gaining some minor coding experience, simple plugin addon for Source games.
• Razvanadrian - Half Life 2 Coding -- REMOVED
• Detler's Site - Lots of Half-Life tutorials, especially on coding in Russian
• design3 Video Tutorials - Many Source videos, including ones on vehicle programming and scripting.

Sample Source Code

• Quake Engine Source Code - Source code from old Quake (used by Half-Life too) and Doom games.
• Mech Commander 2 - Entire game and source code. Can serve as an example for learning programming.
• Plan of Attack Source Code - The entire source code (including art assets) for the Plan of Attack mod, free to use in other mods.
• Full Half-Life SDK: Fileplanet (source code only) / Sourceforge / Gamefront (full / source code only)

C++

• MSDN: Getting Started with Visual C++
• Stroustrup: C++
• Thinking in C++ (2nd Edition)
• CodeCogs - open source Numerical library in C/C++
• codeguru
• cplusplus.com
• Cprogramming.com
• ITtoolbox C Languages Knowledge Base
• C++ for you
• CoderSource.net: C++ Programming Tutorials
• LearnCpp.com
• Xoax.net C++ Video Tutorials
• Wiki Books: C++ Programming
• An introduction to C, by Tom Torfs
• C++ In Action
• C++: A Dialog
• A Beginners C++

Git and Source Code

• GitHub
• GitLab
• BitBucket
• SourceForge

Community

• Source Engine Discord (Set to read-only mode as of 15 August 2025)
• Map Labs Discord
• Valve Modding Community Discord
• TWHL Discord

Modding

• ModDB
• GameBanana
• GameFront

See also

• Category:Open Source Mods
• Main Page

Modeling Sites

This is a list of sites related to modeling.

• Yobi3D - 3D model search engine. Provides 3D preview of 3D models.
• Cannonfodder's Tools - 3DSMax Importers and Exporters, Dispgen - Displacement Terrains from heightmaps, StudioCompiler - Model/Texture Compiler/Decompiler, winBSPzip - BSP Packer
• RnL Forums' Lightwave Plugins - Lightwave mesh export plugins. Not currently available, but may be in the future.
• Insects Infestation - II SDK modeling Export models to Source engine tutorials for 3DSMax, Maya, MS3D, XSI, FRAG.
• CG Talk The largest and most useful model discussion/news site on the internet.
• Digital Tutors - Excellent video tutorials, free and packaged, for using SoftImage|XSI and Adobe Photoshop
• polycount - Articles and forums on game modeling
• Ben Mathis' modeling tutorials
• CDG.net Forums - A great resource for learning about, downloading and releasing models.
• CG Arena - Graphics and Animation Community for Digital Artists
• ShareCG.com - a large collection of free Computer Graphics resources]
• CG Cookie - an online education resource for cg artists working with various popular applications
• squarepolygon - collaboratively edited question and answer site for questions related to 3d modelling and visualisation

See also

• 3D Modeling Programs