Modding Sites

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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

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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