This tutorial assumes you have a very basic knowledge of Source SDK and Hammer.Both these items are only acquirable through 'Steam' (While Source SDK is free, to obatin it, you will need a copy of a source game, which does cost money.Source SDK is the Source Development Kit that comes with any source game, such as Counter-Strike: Source. To obtain it, simply open up steam, go into your 'tools' tab and either double click on 'Source SDK' or right click on it and press 'Resume updating'. To make textures, you will need some image editing software, a text editing program (such as notepad or notepad) OR VTFEdit. That is all.I would recommend Paint.NET, as it is free, has many features and is very easy to use.You can Paint.NETIf you want to make repetitive textures, you will need something that is capable of tiling images. Paint.NET is unfortunately unable to do this, you can, however, use GIMP.You can get GIMPTo make your texture image into a Valve Texture File (we'll go over this in a moment) you will need VTFEdit.
VTFEdit is also capable of making Valve Material Files (we'll go over this too).You can get VTFEditOkay. That's all the programs you'll need, now to explain what is actually required in a texture! Sorry for the crappy pics. There arn't really any relevant pictures, other than these, for this section.
To start things off, we are first going to download the Counter Strike Source Textures (CSS Textures). The reason you need these are because GMOD ( Garry’s Mod ) runs off of the Source Engine. Most of the textures from your favorite servers are using recycled Source Textures.
To access any custom textures in Hammer, they first need to be put in the game directory you are mounting. The game you are mounting and the Source engine type is displayed at the bottom of Source SDK.We are going to put our texture into Half Life 2, however, this method works for most source games. First, you have to have to find and open your steam folder.This is usually in Program filesSteam (or in my case steam2, but that won't affect your directory).
From there, open 'Steamapps' then your username, then 'Half Life 2', then 'hl2'.This folder is where a large proportion of important game files are, so be careful not to delete or alter anything unintentionally.There will most likely be no 'materials' folder here. If there is not, you need to make one. Make sure there are no typos in the name.Open the materials folder and copy your texture into it.
For me, those files were sand.vtf and sand.vmt. Open up your.vmt and double check the directory in there is correct. For me, it was materialssand.
Now we should have a.vmt called sand.vmt, a.vtf called sand.vtf all in our Half Life 2 directory (or whatever game you were using). The.vmt should say 'materialssand'.If you have all these things, then it will work. If your.vmt or.vtf is corrupt, neither will work.I know that my texture needs a bit of work, but it is definitely seamless and is definitely in the game (I'm using GMod by the way).I hope this tutorial was helpful, and to prove that it is do-able following my instructions.
Technically - you do not need to purchase anymore games. However, you will need to purchase and download (possibly) Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 for a lot of the textures and other game objects.From the:Please note: Some multiplayer servers and game-modes might require you to own other games - such as and.This also provides some more details.Counter Strike: Source is currently $19.99 at posting. Team Fortress 2 has been free since June 23, 2011. It's important to note that some others games that may be needed are basically any game that run on the developed by Valve. This includes games like:. Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead 2.
The Half Life 2 Series. Counter Strike: Global Offensive.and many more!
But the majority of the textures are handled with just Counter Strike: Source. I would say at the minimum, you will need that game (and you might as well get Team Fortress 2 since it's free). A complete list of Source games can be found.By not having the correct games, you could potentially be missing the textures needed to play maps created by others. You will see a lot of checkered purple and black objects, and actual 'ERROR' messages like this. In addition to the previous answers, it is worth noting that some maps or mods have models/textures compiled with them. This means that when you download (for example) a map, even though it may have (for example) HL2 Episode 2 textures/models, you are still able to see them properly without the game installed because you have downloaded them with the map.