Basics

This section explains Source 2 engine fundamentals, concepts that apply across every game rather than to a single tool.

Contents

• What is Source 2 is the orientation: the games, what the engine provides, and what changed from Source 1.

• Installing the Workshop Tools gets the tools onto disk.

• Working on content is the section for making something:

  • the addon custom content lives in
  • the content/ and game/ split it is built around
  • the Directory layout of every folder in it. Decompiling assets is the other direction, getting editable files back out of a shipped game.

The remaining pages are engine internals:

• Content mounting (gameinfo.gi, search paths, what an addon can and cannot override),
• Schemas (the type system behind entity properties and data files),
• FGD files (the entity definitions Hammer reads)
• Modifying the game (what an addon can replace in the base game, and what editing shipped files costs).

The binary formats themselves are documented under File Formats, and the individual editors under Editor Tools.