Textures

Many of the material parameters are not much different from Source 1, but the new Material Editor likewise makes editing materials much easier, and allows viewing immediate changes in hammer and in game.

Some CS:GO materials and custom materials will likely have textures without any details. Depending on the type of texture, the quality of the materials can be improved with some extra work. Here are some key layers highlighted and their effects explained:

• Normal map: a texture layer which provides height (and depth) information of a material. Having a heightmap will give a perception of 3D on a 2D surface. To create a heightmap, it is best to use a third party software / online tool that generates a heightmap from an image. A recommendation for this is with a third-party tool 'Crazybump'.
• Roughness: a texture layer which provides information about light reflectivity. Roughness maps are typically grayscale with brighter regions being more rough (less reflective). To create a roughness texture, the easiest way is to make a copy of the color texture, convert to grayscale, and adjust the contrast accordingly via an image editor like GIMP or photoshop.

The left-hand side menu of the Material Editor shows the material features, for example enabling transparency via translucent/alphatest, or enabling specular lighting from cubemaps and stationary/dynamic lights.