[CS: GO] What tools/programs do you use?

    I am new to level design and would like to understand well about the parameters and commands in VTFedit. I am well lay on the subject and would like to understand how you have learned and what programs/editors you use to handle the textures in VTFedit. I once saw a photo of a texture editing program that contained all the parameters of textures and would like to understand how it works, where to download it and how to use. Thanks!

    Since you're new to level design; its awesome that you want to explore stuff etc, but honestly, just start making levels and be creative with what's there as a start =)

    If you're wanting to create custom textures, that's more environment art than level design.

    However, on vtfedit you can set auto-create vmt and from there you can copy examples of valve vmts. I found mine by using gcfscape to extract a couple of examples from the csgo game files as I also needed the normal mapmap and texture blend information. The VDC (valve developer community) has a whole page dedicated to vmt variables.

    GIMP and paint.net are 2 free applications which can help you create tiling images and automatically create normal maps for you. Paint.net also natively handles the DDS (direct draw surface) file type which valve uses for the radar images.

    I would provide links but I'm on my phone, soz.

    I'm using Paint.net daily for all my textures and stuff, i don't know photoshop or gimp, and there's a VTF plugin that works quite well :

    http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=225

    You can do all the things vtfedit can do, within the image editif soft, which is very useful! I can even work live on a texture (working on the .vtf)

    As Evert said, you should start by using just Valve Hammer Editor (the level editor given with CS:GO), using the default textures and models from the game. And only afterwards, look for softwares according to your needs.


    Personally, i'm using :

    • Paint.net (with the VTF plugin and few others)
    • Blender (3D modeling, with smd plugins to import/export models ready to compile for the source engine)
    • StudioCompiler (to compile the models)
    • Notepad++ (for editing .qc and .vmt text files)
    • Crazybump (for quick normal maps)
    • xNormal (for bakings)
    • Handplane
    • Pakrat (packing all your custom files in your bsp)
    • Crowbar (if i need to decompile a model)
    • ...
    Quote from jackophant

    @leplubodeslapin are they all free?

    Yes except for Crazybump but i think there are free alternatives that you can find here :

    https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Normal_Maps

    Quote

    InsaneBump: Specifically made to be a free alternative to CrazyBump, produces high quality normal maps.

    ShaderMap: A free alternative to CrazyBump.
    SSBump Generator 5.3: Another free, open source alternative to CrazyBump that generates Self Shadowed Bump Maps as well as normal maps.

    here are the tools I use for creating textures (in no particular order): maya, vue, GCFScape, VTFedit, photoshop, nDo2, notepad++

    I really like the nDo2 plugin, super easy to use/understand and cheap! would also recommend getting GCFScape to brows cs:go materials and check out how they have setup things - its pretty much a must

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