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
Creating a barebones Source engine mod usually requires more than just creating a gameinfo.txt. Mods based on Half-Life and Half-Life 2 games can be created with the XBLAH's Modding Tool using an intuitive interface, that creates all the required files and directories. Mapbase mods are also supported.
- 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.
This can be accessed within the tool through Modding > New.
See more in Create a Mod.
File Explorer
All the files mounted into the game info can be previewed with XBLAH's Modding Tool 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 within the tool through Modding > File Explorer.
See more in Game_Directory.
The File Explorer contains context menus for each file, targeting them to their respective native editor.
Clean mod
Before shipping the mod, the XBLAH's Modding Tool provides the modder with a list of unnecessary files, which can be removed with the push of a button.
This can be accessed within the tool through Modding > Clean.
See more in Pre-publication_evaluation#Excess_files.
Game info
The mod information can be edited with XBLAH's Modding Tool through a comprehensive UI without requiring the modder to mess with text files. It includes all the major keys of Source SDK 2013 Single-player and Source SDK 2013 Multi-player, more than enough for the majority of Source modders.
This can be accessed within the tool through Modding > Game info.
See more in Gameinfo.txt.
Name
Options
Steam games list
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.
This can be accessed within the tool through Modding > Chapters.
Menu
Main menu items can be added, modified or removed with XBLAH's Modding Tool] based on a provided list of options.
This can be accessed within the tool through Modding > Menu.
See more in Manipulating_the_game_menu_items.
Menu items
Add item
