VMT EDITOR

FREE OPEN SOURCE EDITOR FOR VMT FILES

FEATURES

FAST VMT CREATION

Material parameters are arranged in groups that you can add to your material, like Reflection or Specular. Commonly used groups and shaders are just a click away.

SUPPORT FOR LATEST PARAMETERS

Support for latest CS:GO parameters, such as layer blend and brush specular.

VMT VALIDATION

Every imported material is validated for missing textures, mismatching parameters or missing brackets.

TEXTURE PREVIEW

Preview textures in the material with an interactive color and alpha overlay.

DRAG AND DROP CONVERSION

Drag and drop your texture files into VMT Editor window to have them automatically converted to VTF and copied to appropriate folder.

FAST RECONVERT

VMT Editor remembers imported texture paths so you can reconvert textures to VTF with a click of a button.

TEMPLATES

Save your VMT files as templates that contain multiple commonly used parameters.

PROXIES

Edit proxies with syntax validation and autocompletion.

BATCH VTF CONVERSION

Convert multiple textures at the same time. Choose custom output folder.

BATCH VMT CREATION

Auto create multiple VMT files based on your open material.

BLEND TOOL TEXTURE

Generate a blend tool texture for your blend material. Works on both WorldVertexTransition and Lightmapped_4WayBlend.

AND MORE...

sRGB color correction, water texture creation, editing the VMT Preview, adding custom alpha channels...

QUICK START

1. DOWNLOAD AND EXTRACT

Download the .zip file from the GitHub page and extract it anywhere on your computer.

2. SET UP GAMES

Open VMT Editor by clicking on VMT_Editor.exe. It should automatically detect Source games you have installed. Select a game from the game menu and you can start working.

If there are no games detected, navigate to Games > Manage Games... dialog. Click on Add button, then type in a name and browse for the game installation folder. This should be the folder with the file "gameinfo.txt"

3. THE UI

VMT Editor UI has 4 parts: toolbar on the left, main tab widget in the center and VMT Preview and Message log on the right.

Editing materials is divided into groups you can add from the Add... menu or by clicking on the toolbar buttons.

To add textures to your material you can click on the Browse button next to the appropriate text box, or you can drag and drop your textures directly into the box. You can add both VTF files or normal image files (PNG, TGA ...)

4. OPTIONS

Open options to change how VMT Editor behaves. You can specify your own texture suffixes and enable auto renaming. You can select your preferred mipmap filter. You can also add VMT Editor to .vmt files context menu and change .vmt and .vtf file icons.

SUBSTANCE PAINTER

QUICK SETUP

Copy the shader to your Painter shelf.

You can download templates and export presets here. Base template contains the most commonly used channels, while the extended template provides all the channels that the shader can use.

Cubemap (shiny) reflections are controlled by Specular or User0 (Envmap Mask) channels, depending on whether "Use Specular Channel" is checked.

Specular highlight is controlled by Specular and Glossiness channels. Specular controls the power and Glossiness controls the hotspot size. You can use a Glossiness channel or a slider depending on "Use Glossiness Channel" checkbox

User1 or Color Mask controls the masking of the diffuse color, emulating $blendtintbybasealpha.

MORE INFO

There are several export presets that depend on the use case:

  • Source All exports all the channels, with Envmap mask in Diffuse alpha and Specular in Normal alpha.

  • Source Base exports Diffuse with Specular alpha

  • Source Base+Spec exports Diffuse with separate Specular

  • Source Normal exports Diffuse and Normal with Specular Alpha

  • Source Normal+Tint exports Diffuse with Color Mask alpha and Normal with Specular Alpha

You can change Envmap Tint in shader parameters to get a more managable reflection.

You can also use the slider to boost the Specular highlight.

Add a Fill layer on top of your stack with Diffuse and Specular channels with your AO texture and set tem to multiply to get nicer looking reflections and more defined shapes.

SUBSTANCE DESIGNER

QUICK SETUP

Copy the contents of the shaders folder to ...\Substance Designer 6\resources\view3d\shaders

Make a new substance using the standard template. Select the shader by clicking on Materials > Default > Definitions > source in the 3d View. You can edit the shader parameters by clicking on Materials > Default > Edit.

Make sure at least one light is on in Lights > Edit, otherwise specular highlight won't show up.

You can view the textures in 3d view by right clicking and selecting "View in 3D View" and selecting the appropriate channel. You can also right click drag the node onto the 3d view.

You can use the same node as both envmapmask and specularmask.

MORE INFO

To export the textures ready to use in source you can use the RGB-A Merge to add envmap mask or specular mask to either Diffuse or Normal outputs.

Source materials need slightly more light information in diffuse than PBR, so it's a good idea to multiply AO and also in some cases overlay a Light node on top of Diffuse. Make sure not to overdo it though.