$basetexture

$basetexture is a material shader parameter available in all Source games. It defines an albedo texture. It is very rare for a material not to use this parameter and some shaders will load a default texture if it stays undefined.

VMT syntax

$basetexture	<texture without extension, relative to <game>\materials\>

LightmappedGeneric
{
	$basetexture	brick\brickwall031b
}

Additional parameters

$basetexturetransform <matrix>

Transforms the texture before use in the material. This does not affect lightmaps on the surface.

The default position is "center .5 .5 scale 1 1 rotate 0 translate 0 0".

center defines the point of rotation. Only useful if rotate is being used.
scale fits the texture into the material the given number of times. '2 1' is a 50% scale in the X axis.
rotate rotates the texture counter-clockwise in degrees. Accepts any number, including negatives.
translate shifts the texture by the given numbers. '.5' will shift it half-way.

Note: All values must be included!

Bug: Scaling the texture may cause odd issues where the Texture Lock tool in Hammer will not actually lock the texture in place.

Bug: Rotating textures applied on brushes will rotate around the map origin (confirm: Orangebox engine only?). A fix for this is to change the center position in the VMT to the brush's origin.

$frame <integer>

The frame displayed for a multi-frame texture. This is normally set by the AnimatedTexture or TextureToggle proxies, but can be set manually. The value must be a valid index, or crashes might occur.

$basetexture2

Some shaders (most notably WorldVertexTransition) allow the use of two albedos. The second texture is handled by a mirrored set of commands with '2' in their name:

$basetexture2 <texture>
$basetexturetransform2 <matrix>: Bug: $basetexturetransform2 doesn't exist in the DX9 version of WorldVertexTransition, only working with the DX8 shader. In DX9, $basetexture2 will instead move with the original $basetexturetransform in sync with $basetexture. This is the case in Source 2007, Source 2013, and Alien Swarm. Other games have not been tested.; Code Fix: Mapbase adds support for $basetexturetransform2 in Source 2013. The specific code can be found on its repository in the LightmappedGeneric shader files.
$frame2 <integer>