Material Creation

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

There are vtf plugins available for some graphics software packages, such as Photoshop and Paint.NET. These can be used to replace the first three steps of the following process.

1. Create the source texture as a valid targa (.tga) image (using graphics software such as Photoshop or the free Gimp. MSPaint CANNOT do this).
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

• Material
• TGA
• Vtex
• Vtex compile parameters
• VTF
• VMT
• Creating a Material - A longer tutorial on this process.
• VTF Plug-In for Photoshop
• VTF Plug-In for Paint.NET