Environments

SteamVR Workshop Tools lets you create and share different environments for SteamVR Home: photogrammetry scenes, game worlds, or anything else that can be represented by a 3D model.

Download and Installation

Creator Resources
Introduction	Environment Tutorial
Basics	Creating 3D Environments
Creating Photogrammetry Environments	Scripting
Third Party Applications and Source 2	References
Additional Resources

Launch

To launch SteamVR Workshop Tools, go to the SteamVR Status Menu > Workshop > Create / Modify an Environment.

Creator Resources

• Introduction - An overview of the various concepts behind the SteamVR Workshop tools - while intended for complete beginners, there should be something useful here for everyone, from seasoned game developers unfamiliar with the engine to long-term Source 1 game modders.

Environment Tutorial

• Part One: Hammer and Basic Lighting - First part of a series of tutorials covering the construction of a SteamVR Home environment depicting a real place, starting with basics such as building the basic geometry, simple (but effective) lighting, and going all the way to making near-photorealistic materials and physics props.

• Part Two: Materials, Details and Props - Second part, covering the creation of new materials (including an introduction to the Physically Based Rendering system used in SteamVR Home) and on adding details to the map.

• Part Three: Creating a Physics Prop - Third part, detailing how to build an interactive physics prop including lots of different physics options and surface property sounds.

Basics

• Get Started - Learn the basics of creating a SteamVR Home enviornment – from creating a floor and a light to adding models and teleport meshes.

• Bring your Destination to SteamVR - Learn how to move your Destination over to the SteamVR Workshop.

• Add SteamVR Quick Panels - Learn how to add the Friends, Rooms, and Recent Apps panel to your environment in the Workshop tools.

• Asset Packs - Creating and using asset packs.

• SteamVR Home Environment Checklist - Quick checklist to make sure your environment is ready to upload to the workshop.

Creating 3D Environments

• Basic Construction - Learn the basics of constructing meshes in Hammer.

• Model Editor - Learn to create, view, and edit models with the Model Editor.

• Materials - Learn how to use the Material Editor to create and edit materials.

• Particles - Learn the basics of creating particles with the Particle Editor.

• Importing an Animated Model - Learn how to import a model with animations into SteamVR Workshop Tools.

• Triggers, Animation, and Sound - Recreate the Turret Singers environment and learn how to use triggers, animations, and sound for your own environments.

• Adding Sound - A guide on adding sounds to your environment.

• Adding Lighting - A guide on adding light to your environment.

• Adding a Welcome Panel - A guide to adding a simple information panel and globe, and touching on more advanced entity logic and Panorama aspects.

• Adding Fog - Learn how to add fog to your environment using the new env_gradient_fog entity.

• Adding Overlays - Learn how to add overlays to your environment and models in SteamVR Home.

• Precomputed Visibility - An introduction to the new visibility determination system, useful for improving rendering performance in large, expansive maps with multiple rooms and areas.

• Light Cookies - An explanation of what light cookies are and how to apply them to your spotlights.

• Advanced Interaction - A guide to creating advanced interactions via the point_value_remapper entity.

Creating Photogrammetry Environments

• Create a Photogrammetry Environment - Step by step instructions for creating a photogrammetry environment.

• Advanced Outdoors Photogrammetry - Documents the full cleanup of a near-seamless, fully immersive outdoors scene, including distant geometry and a skydome.

• Advanced Indoors Photogrammetry - Similar to the above, documents the process of creating an indoors scene using the Valve office lobby as an example.

• Photogrammetry tips - Background on the photogrammetry process, as well as tips and tricks for a good capture.

• Lighting Setup for Photogrammetry Scenes - Describes the basics of setting up a direct light, shadowed materials and ambient light and cubemap reflections.

• Regard3D - Regard3D is a free, open-source, multi-platform photogrammetry tool. Page is a brief summary of information from the Regard3D website.

Scripting

• Scripting

• Script API

• Creating a Flashlight Tool - A guide to creating tool items using vscript (like the drone, air brush and Ballooninator).

• Custom Tool Creation - Useful techniques when creating custom tool items.

Third Party Applications and Source 2

• Blender to Source 2 - Step by step instructions for exporting a mesh to Source 2.

References

• Entity Guide - Usage of entities in SteamVR Home compared to legacy games.

• Shaders - The parameters available for a material are determined by its shader.

• Sky - An HDR panorama used for 2D skyboxes.
• VR Simple - A simple diffuse-only shader with no normal maps or specular lighting.
• VR Standard - The main shader used by most materials. A PBR shader with many features.
• VR Unlit - An unlit shader mainly useful for photogrammetry.
• VR Wireframe Hologram - Hologram Wireframe Shader backported from Half-Life: Alyx.

Additional Resources

• Asset Browser - Overview of the Asset Browser - the hub of SteamVR Workshop Tools.

• Using Hammer - Overview of Hammer - SteamVR Workshop Tools's level editor.

• Panorama - An overview of using Panorama to create UI.

• Panorama Javascript API - Client-side Javascript API classes and functions available in SteamVR Home.
• Cloth Simulation - Information on the Source 2 cloth simulation system.
• Destinations Guides on Steam - further guides, tutorials and articles from the community (Destinations being the predecessor of SteamVR Home).