GitHub - erysdren/SourceRadiant: The open-source, cross-platform level editor for Source Engine based games.

5 min read Original article ↗

SourceRadiant

The open-source, cross-platform level editor for Source Engine based games.

SourceRadiant is a fork of NetRadiant-custom (GtkRadiant 1.4→massive rewrite→1.5→NetRadiant→NetRadiant-custom→this)

THIS PROJECT IS STILL IN AN EARLY ALPHA STATE!
DO NOT OVERWRITE HAMMER-MADE VMFS WITH THIS!
MAKE BACKUPS!

testroom_standards.vmf d1_trainstation_02.vmf
ep1_citadel_02b.vmf testchmb_a_00.vmf

Goals

  • Become a viable Source Engine level editor beyond the novelty of making levels outside of Windows
  • Stay in step with general editor changes from upstream NetRadiant-custom
  • Disable any Radiant feature that is unrelated to Source Engine level editing
  • Attempt to upstream any editor changes that are related to code cleanup and general usability improvements.

Credits

Supported games

There are gamepacks for the following Source Engine titles:

  • Half-Life 2 (2004)
  • Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (2004)
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004)
  • Counter-Strike: Source (2004)
  • Day of Defeat: Source (2005)
  • SiN Episodes: Emergence (2006)
  • Garry's Mod (2006)
  • Half-Life 2: Episode One (2006)
  • Half-Life 2: Episode Two (2007)
  • Portal (2007)
  • Team Fortress 2 (2007)
  • D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up (2008)
  • Portal 2 (2011)

But if the sourcepp library can load the assets, then supporting a lot more Source Engine games is probably feasible.

Features

Can Do

  • Load VMF maps
    • FIXME: Discards Displacements.
    • FIXME: Discards Visgroups.
    • FIXME: Discards some metadata, like viewsettings and mapversion.
    • FIXME: Discards Cordons.
    • FIXME: Discards Cameras.
  • Save VMF maps
    • FIXME: Sometimes solids are saved incorrectly and then the map won't compile.
    • FIXME: Needs to have a special case for not merging entity keys that start with "On", which are always Source Engine I/O outputs.
  • Load VMT materials
    • FIXME: Doesn't prioritize loading the %tooltexture VTF before $basetexture.
  • Load VTF textures
  • Load files from VPKs, GMAs and GCFs
    • FIXME: Doesn't support "old style" VPK layouts, like from Source SDK 2006.
    • TODO: Support VTMB VPKs. They can already be loaded by sourcepp, but my code assumes that the filenames end with _dir.vpk, which the VTMB ones don't.
    • TODO: Support Garry's Mod GMAs. They can already be loaded by sourcepp, but my code needs some adjustments for it to work right.
  • Load MDL models
    • FIXME: Only loads the first MDL surface, so some models are missing chunks.
  • Compile Maps
  • Load FGDs
    • FIXME: Only loads them from gamepacks directory.
    • FIXME: Doesn't load choice/list keyvalues.
    • FIXME: Doesn't write default keyvalues to the saved map, like Hammer does.
    • FIXME: Discards Source Entity I/O keys.

Can't Do (yet):

  • Displacements
    • Might be a tough challenge to modify Patch support into Displacement support. I was told that FTEQW has code for converting Displacements into Q3-style bezier curves.
  • Source Entity I/O
    • Mostly a UI issue. In the short term it will be better to just document the plaintext format of I/O strings, and make sure they don't get merged in the saved VMF.
    • NOTE: All Source Entity I/O strings have the following format: target,inputName,dataString,delayinSeconds,numUses, so you could enter them manually as entity keys.
  • Visgroups
    • May require some restructuring of Radiant internals to achieve. Radiant's "layers" system doesn't seem to be the same.
  • Decals
    • Probably should look at TrenchBroom's implementation for reference.
  • Instances

Random feature highlights

(Note that this feature list is copied entirely from NetRadiant-custom)

  • WASD camera binds
  • Fully supported editing in 3D view (brush and entity creation, all manipulating tools)
  • Uniform merge algorithm, merging selected brushes, components and clipper points
  • Free and robust vertex editing, also providing abilities to remove and insert vertices
  • UV Tool (edits texture alignment of selected face or patch)
  • Autocaulk
  • Model browser
  • Brush faces extrusion
  • Left mouse button click tunnel selector, paint selector
  • Numerous mouse shortcuts (see help->General->Mouse Shortcuts)
  • Focus camera on selected (Tab)
  • Snapped modes of manipulators
  • Draggable renderable transform origin for manipulators
  • Quick vertices drag / brush faces shear shortcut
  • Simple shader editor
  • Texture painting by drag
  • Seamless brush face<->face, patch<->face texture paste
  • Customizable keyboard shortcuts
  • Customizable GUI themes, fonts
  • MeshTex plugin
  • Patch thicken
  • All patch prefabs are created aligned to active projection
  • Filters toolbar with extra functions on right mouse button click
  • Viewports zoom in to mouse pointer
  • 'all Supported formats' default option in open dialogs
  • Opening *.map, sent via cmd line (can assign *.map files in OS to be opened with radiant)
  • Texture browser: show alpha transparency option
  • Texture browser: search in directories and tags trees
  • Texture browser: search in currently shown textures
  • CSG Tool (aka shell modifier)
  • Working region compilations (build a map with region enabled = compile regioned part only)
  • QE tool in a component mode: perform drag w/o hitting any handle too
  • Map info dialog: + Total patches, Ingame entities, Group entities, Ingame group entities counts
  • Connected entities selector/walker
  • Build->customize: list available build variables
  • 50x faster light radius rendering
  • Light power is adjustable by mouse drag
  • Anisotropic textures filtering
  • Optional MSAA in viewports
  • New very fast entity names rendering system
  • Support 'stupid quake bug'
  • Arbitrary texture projections for brushes and curves
  • Fully working texture lock, supporting any affine transformation
  • Texture locking during vertex and edge manipulations
  • Brush resize (QE tool): reduce selected faces amount to most wanted ones
  • Support brush formats, as toggleable preference: Axial projection, Brush primitives, Valve 220
  • Autodetect brush type on map opening
  • Automatic AP, BP and Valve220 brush types conversion on map Import and Paste
  • New bbox styled manipulator, allowing any affine transform (move, rotate, scale, skew)
  • rendering of Q3 shader based skyboxes
  • Incredible number of fixes and options

Compiling

cmake -Bbuild -S.
cmake --build build

A fully prepared copy of the editor will be placed under the install directory.