VMT

A material is a .VMT text file in a mod's materials/ folder that defines the appearance and behaviour of a surface. Its chief component is usually a Valve Texture Format image file, but it also includes information about how the surface reacts when walked on, shot, or applied to a physical object, what shader(s) will draw it, what type of reflections to use, and potentially many, many other properties.

A simple example

LightmappedGeneric
{
	$basetexture coast/shingle_01
	$surfaceprop gravel
}

This is an example of a material for use on brushes.

• It is drawn by the LightmappedGeneric shader
• It displays materials/coast/shingle_01.vtf
• It has the physical and reactive properties of gravel

A material for use on models would be identical except for the shader, which would be VertexLitGeneric. Valve's stock shaders generally support the same properties (commands starting with $), allowing you to easily switch between them.

See Shader Types and Parameters for a full list of Valve's shaders, or Shader Authoring if you are interested in creating your own.

See also

• Creating a Material
• Category:Material System
• Notepad++ syntax highlighting for materials
• Shader Types and Parameters
• Valve Texture Format