Hi All- I wanted to let you all know that I have finished testing the SDK update
and it will go live tomorrow morning. Thanks very much for your patience
while I spent extra time testing it out.
As I've said before the main purpose of this release is to get the
updated content creation tools in the hands of the community. The next
major release will include the client and server DLL code for Episode 2
although there may be a couple of minor releases before to address any
problems.
Here are the interesting things to know about the release tomorrow:
1. The new SDK contains tools for creating content compatible with both
the Ep1 and Orange Box versions of the Source Engine.
2. By default the SDK launcher will launch the Orange Box versions of
Hammer, Face Poser, and Model Viewer.
3. Adding '-engine ep1' to the launch options for the Source SDK tool
will set the launcher to run the Ep1 versions of Hammer Face Poser, and
Model Viewer
4. There is a new directory structure underneath
'%SteamInstallPath%\steamapps\\sourcesdk'
a. sourcesdk\bin - contains the binaries needed to run the SDK
Launcher
b. sourcesdk\bin\ep1\bin - contains the Ep1 tools and the
GameConfig.txt that is run when the Source SDK is in "Ep1" mode
c. sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin - contains the Orange Box tools and
the GameConfig.txt that is run when the Source SDK is in "Orange Box"
mode
5. There is a .vmf file for one of the shipping Portal maps in the
'sourcesdk_content' directory - testchmb_a_05.vmf. I will add an example
map for Team Fortress 2 in a subsequent release.
6. When running the Orange Box versions of the 'studiomdl' and 'vtex'
you should include '-nop4' on the command line to bypass our Perforce
integration with these tools. I will eliminate this need in a subsequent
release.
We're launching the new SDK in the morning so that I can be available to
make fixes as soon as you get your hands on the SDK. Once it goes live
please feel free to e-mail me directly if you see any problems. We
aren't able to release this version of the SDK as a beta so I will try
to act as quickly as possible to fix problems and put out an update.
-Mike Durand
Valve
finally 
the new light preview better be decent enough to be actually useful
