Talk:Source VMT Editor

In the works of writing up information for the Material Editor--Kwp17pitts 23:41, 1 January 2012 (PST) If anyone has more information or a tutorial regarding this please add

I'll be adding info when I can. Through use of the editor I've noticed that you can actually do things you can't manually editing vmt's, such as defining a 2nd bumpmap scale. I am not sure why manually editing vmts and editing them via the Editor saves the process differently, or rather the actual vmt.--MrFourVideoCards 02:32, 3 January 2012 (PST)

Material Editor Issues in Alien Swarm

Currently the material editor for Alien Swarm is largely bugged and crash prone. Trying to figure out if there is a possible solution to correct this problem.--Kwp17pitts 21:02, 17 January 2012 (PST)

Old Info

Note:This information temporarly placed here until the rest of the appropriate pages are made, if you know more about this tool and want to help out let me know--Kwp17pitts 19:09, 27 June 2012 (PDT)

What is a Material?

A material (or VMT) is a script that defines how a texture (or VTF) will render as well as sound properties. Some materials may not even load textures for certain effects depending on the types of shaders used.

Note:This tool will not edit textures, just only scripts see VTFEdit for editing textures

Interface

Note:The file menu is pretty self explanitory

File	Edit	Material	View
Open... Save Save As... Close Recent Clear Recent Exit	Undo Shortcut keys Ctrl + Z Redo Shortcut keys ⇧ Shift + Ctrl + Z Describe Undo History Confirm:What does this do?? Clear Undo History Keyboard Shortcut keys ⇧ Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E See setting key bindings	Set Params To Default Resets the material parameters	Properties Shows the Properties Window If Checked Preview Shows the Preview Window If Checked Show Flags Shows the parameter flags If Checked Show Tool Parameters Shows the tool parameters on the properties window If Checked Default Layout Resets the layout to the defualt view

To Create a new material

click file -> new , then begin editing

see Material for editing information

Shader Parameters

see List of Shader Parameters for more details

Data types

Todo: add more information, Explain Data types

• bool "short for boolean" in which 0 = false and 1 = true
• color <color255 + int> (ex. 97 11 255 255)
• float "floating point" (ex. 5)
• int "short for integer" (ex. 56)
• matrix "written in binary" (ex. 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 )
• string "file path" (ex. brick\brickfloor001a.vtf) "name" (ex. VertexLitGeneric)
• vector2 "two configureable values" (ex. 23 45)
• vector3 "three configureable values" (ex. 23 45 37)
• vector4 "four configureable values" (ex. 23 45 37 89)

Loading a material

Note:Complex material designs can and may crash the editor when loading

Warning:Do not load material vmts outside of the loaded mod or game directory, the associated vtf files may not load as a result

click file -> Open..., open the file located only in the mod or game directory currently running

Saving a material

Note:Somtimes settings may not stick, this could be due to having invalid configurations

Warning:Do not save material vmts outside of the loaded mod or game directory, the material will not load as a result

click file -> save as..., give the material a name, and save only in the mod or game directory currently running