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<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Hammer++ : Tools</title>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles/main.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles/updates.css">
<link rel="icon" type=image/png href="images/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32">
</head>
<body>
<div class="content">
<a class="logo" href="index.html">
<img src="images/logo.png">
</a>
<nav id="navbar"></nav>
<article>
<p class="info">
This is a collection of other tools and scripts I've made over the years
<br>
I don't actively maintain these but perhaps others might find them useful..
<br><br>
Discord to discuss the tools: <a target="_blank" href="https://discord.com/invite/YrV35cCqgE">Join</a>
<br><br>
<span class="error">NOTE</span>: If you intend to redistribute the map compilers in your Source mod,<br>you must ask me for permission. DM me at @ficool2 on Discord
</p>
<br>
<div class="patch">
<h1>VBSP++</h1>
<pre>
VBSP++ is a modification of SDK2013 VBSP with various new features and improvements
Changelog:
- Reduces brushes and brushsides usage of the map by 10-30% (MAX_MAP_BRUSHES, MAX_MAP_BRUSHSIDES)
- Note: this reduction will be applied once the map exceeds the limit
- Reduces vertex usage of the map by 10-30% (MAX_MAP_VERTS)
- Note: this reduction will be applied once the map exceeds the limit
- You can also use the new "-cullverts" parameter to always reduce verts even if the limit isn't exceeded
- Automatically reduces planes usage of the map up to 40% if limit is hit (MAX_MAP_PLANES)
- If plane limit is exceeded, VRAD++ must be used or lighting will be broken
- No t-junction limit
- No detail prop limit
- Raised overlay limit to 8192 and internal entity limit to 65536
- Increased maximum switchable lights from 32 to 96
- "-leaktest" is now enabled by default, i.e. stops compile on leaks
- Added "-noleaktest" to disable this behavior
- Added appid mounting in gameinfo.txt
- Added support for mounting custom shaders in mods
- Added support for custom $surfaceprops on clip brushes
- Added support for compiling 4-way blends (for games that support it)
- Added func_detail_blocker (like newer VBSPs)
- Added -blocksize (default is 1024)
- Useful to compute visibility faster on open, large maps like surf (I recommend 2048)
- Using a higher blocksize also reduces your vertex count, useful to circumvent vertex limit
- Added -allowdynamicpropsasstatic (allows any props to used as static props)
- Note that some props might work right with this, particularly props that aren't compiled with "$staticprop"
- Added per-prop ambient occlusion toggle
- To use, set "disableambientocclusion 1" keyvalue on the entity
- Does not work on HL2/Singleplayer BSPs due to older static prop format
- Added proper support for compiling power of 4 displacements (like CS:GO)
- Update: this is now reverted due to causing crashes on Linux servers. Slammin is also affected by this.
- Added parallax_obb entity support for mods that have parallax cubemaps
- Also inserts extra data for PCC on models
- Added func_detail_illusionary (identical to func_detail but non solid)
- Added func_nobevel support
- VBSP generates bounding box brushsides for angled geometry to improve collision accuracy
- But a problem is that these can eat up brushsides quickly
- Surround angled brushes with this to skip creating these extra brushsides
- Accurate collision isn't needed for areas the player can't reach anyway (like out of bounds)
- You can also specifiy a "vbsp_nobevel" 1 keyvalue in a brush entity to disable bevels
- Added -nobevel (disables brushsides for all angled geometry. I do not recommend using this, use func_nobevel instead)
- Added optimization to automatically disable vertex lighting for props with $bumpmap/$phong
- Reduces time spent in VRAD with -staticproplighting
- Use "-showineligiblevertexlitprops" to show what props were marked ineligible for vertex lighting
- Use "-noineligiblevertexlitprops" to disable this optimization (disabled by default with "-csgo" parameter)
- Added logging if FGD has parsing errors
- Added -nonamefixup to disable default instance name prefixing with "InstanceAuto"
- Added "-singleplayer" option to compile maps for HL2 (SDK13 Singleplayer) BSP format
- Added "-l4d2", "-portal2", "-asw", 'insurgency", "-csgo" options
- Allows compiling maps for L4D2, Portal 2, Alien Swarm, Insurgency, and CS:GO BSP formats respectively
- VBSP++ will automatically compile the correct format if it recognizes the "SteamAppId" in the gameinfo.txt
- Recognized games:
- HL2, Portal 1, Synergy, Entropy Zero, Entropy Zero 2, SDK2013 Singleplayer: "-singleplayer"
- L4D2: "-l4d2"
- Portal 2: "-portal2"
- Alien Swarm, AS: Reactive Drop: "-asw"
- CS2 (Legacy), CSGO, Insurgency, Day of Infamy, Black Mesa: "-csgo"
- Added warning if using info_lighting on dynamic entities
- Added warning if static prop hull generation takes a long time
- Added sanity check for NaN/Inf values in the VMF
- Added check for brushes going outside of map grid
- This prevents the "Map coordinate extents are too large!!" error in-game
- Added "-warnMissingInstances" to ignore missing instance VMFs
- Added %compileNoShadows support
- Added %compileTeam support
- Added new "%compileNormal" parameter for brush materials
- This forces vertex normals on the face to all be the same
- Useful to make fake 2D skyboxes without needing a HDR texture (via "UnlitGeneric" cubemap)
- Example: %compileNormal "[1 0 0]"
- Added support for compiling lightmaps on Water if $lightmapwaterfog is set
- Added support for high lightmap sizes (useful for games that support -maxlightmapdim)
- Added support for saving "enablelightbounce" flag for static props
- Added support for reading decimal values from face lightmap scales
- Added -nohdrcubemap to not write HDR cubemaps to BSP, useful if map is compiled in LDR only
- Likewise "-noldrcubemap" exists to not write LDR cubemaps
- "-nodefaultcubemap" disables both cubemaps
- Added "-nobump" (disables bumpmap lightmaps on all faces)
- Added "-maxluxelscale" (clamps maximum luxel scale, default is no limit)
- Added "-report_search_paths" to list current search paths for debugging
- Added ability to insert default options from gameinfo
- To use this, make a "Tools" section in your "gameinfo.txt"
- Use "vbsp", "vvis", "vrad" and "studiomdl" keys, with the values being options to add
- Added "func_simpleladder" format support (used by L4D2)
- If your mod supports it, you can also compile this ladder format with "-simpleladders" parameter
- Added experimental support for compiling different static prop formats
- Use "-staticpropformat" to switch to these formats
- Supported formats: v6 (HL2), v7 v8 (L4D), v9 (L4D2), v10 (TF2, default), v11-v12 (CSGO), v13 (Strata), v14 (new)
- Mainly useful for Garry's Mod, it now means you can compile maps with prop rendercolor and scaling
- Added support for variable brush, displacement and texinfo limit
- Change them via "-maxbrushes", "-maxdispinfo" and "-maxtexinfo" respectively
- NOTE: This will only work on engines that support the higher limit
- Blocklight and blockLOS tooltextures no longer cut out faces from other "func_detail"
- This change was made to support L4D2 maps, which rely on this change
- "-leaktest" will now stop on areaportal leaks
- Restored support for -maxlightmapdim and -defaultluxelsize parameters
- func_occluder, func_areaportal, func_viscluster, func_nobevel, parallax_obb no longer count towards the brush limit
- Improved performance of "Fixing up env_cubemap materials" step
- Improved clarity of some warnings and removed useless ones
- Renamed waterindices to primindices (less misleading name)
- Fixed instances not collapsing correctly if FGD had unrecognized types
- Fixed instance names prefixed with ! being remapped
- Fixed remapped instance I/O always using ESC separators (fixes HL2 compatibility)
- Fixed recursive instance paths not working
- Fixed cubemaps not being transformed inside instances
- Fixed smoothing groups not working on func_detail
- Fixed displacements not being rotated correctly in instances
- Fixed occluders not being collapsed correctly in instances
- Fixed cubemap side IDs not being remapped in instances
- Fixed missing texture cubemaps if skybox has mismatched side dimensions
- Fixed crash if an instance overflowed brush or brushsides limit
- Fixed crash if instance name was too long
- Fixed crash if no surfaceprops were loaded
- Fixed crash if map had more than 32768 texinfo
- Fixed crash if displacement face had less than 3 points
- Fixed bug where brushside count was varying depending on the CPU
- Deprecated manifests
- Deprecated func_viscluster entity
Installation:
Extract the zip and launch the "toolsplusplus_installer.exe" installer.
Manual installation (if installer doesn't work):
Place into your game's bin/x64/ or bin/win64/ folder (where normal vbsp.exe is)
Update Hammer's game configuration to use vbspplusplus.exe as the BSP compiler
Supported branches
- Team Fortress 2 (including Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch)
- Garry's Mod
- SDK 2013 Multiplayer
- SDK 2013 Singleplayer (including Half-Life 2 and Portal 1)
- Add "-singleplayer" parameter to compile the correct BSP format
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Portal 2 (partially)
- func_instance_io_proxy is not yet supported, use stock VBSP for now
- Alien Swarm
- CS:GO
Optionally, add the "tools_plusplus.fgd" FGD file into Hammer's game configuration
Tools -> Options -> Game Configurations -> click Add beside Game Data files
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tools_plusplus.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 21st April, 2026)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>VVIS++</h1>
<pre>
VVIS++ is a modification of SDK2013 VVIS, with the main upgrade being massive improvement in compile time
Changelog:
- Huge performance improvement over normal VVIS. Speed up ranges from 50% to 2700% faster (!!)
- See this <a target="_blank" href="https://i.imgur.com/AdXWITy.png">benchmark</a> image for a comparison
- Produces the same results as normal VVIS
- Scales up to 64 threads
- Added appid mounting in gameinfo.txt
Installation:
Extract the zip and launch the "toolsplusplus_installer.exe" installer.
Manual installation (if installer doesn't work):
Extract VVIS++ from the download and place it anywhere. This tool is fully standalone
Update Hammer's game configuration to use vvisplusplus.exe as the VIS compiler
Supported branches
- Team Fortress 2 (including Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch)
- Garry's Mod
- SDK 2013 Multiplayer
- SDK 2013 Singleplayer (including Half-Life 2)
- Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2
- Portal 1 and Portal 2
- Alien Swarm
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- SFM
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tools_plusplus.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 21st April, 2026)
Wall of Testimonials:
- "wow"
- "I am shocked that my map now compiles in 20 seconds, took 5-10 mins before"
- "from 29 seconds to 16, thats really good boost"
- "im down from a total compile of over 6 minutes to a bit over 1 minutes"
- "its like 5x faster, not just 2x"
- "HOLY FUCK THIS IS SO MUCH FASTER"
- "those time improves are bonkers"
- "this vvis compile went from 20:24 -> 3:40, what the fuck did you put in this thing"
- "This is awesome"
- ":hyenastare:"
- "FROM LIKE AN HOUR TO QUICKER THAN IT TAKES TO MAKE A CUPPA"
- "its so much better lmfao"
- "this used to be over 1 hour total, oh my fucking fuckedy fuck, black magic"
- "portal flow was near instant, no need to fix the nodraw corridors underneath the map, thank god"
- "test compile of well, vvis went from 10 minutes to 1:30, truly amazing stuff"
- "portalflow is about 6 times faster with this"
- "cordon compile to test lighting: 32 minutes, 48 seconds elapsed -> 4 minutes, 51 seconds, this is incredible"
- "ts so juicy dude"
- "You're pawesome"
- "1 hour 12 minutes down to 5 minutes on my map :cracksoldier:, and my cpu isn't even great either"
- "absolutely insane"
- "4:56:30 time elapsed (gmod vvis), 5:43 time elapsed (vis++), i wish i was joking"
- "its great god bless vvis++"
- "From 24 hours to around 20mins. It's amazing. I was getting ready to not have a computer the whole day"
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>VRAD++</h1>
<pre>
VRAD++ is a modification of SDK2013 VRAD with various new features and improvements
Changelog:
- Scales up to 64 threads
- Small performance optimizations
- Shared LDR/HDR compiling:
- When using -both, LDR lighting data will be redirected to HDR at no extra file size cost
- This means you don't need to compile VRAD twice for LDR and HDR users anymore (compatible with both)
- Passing in -ldr or -hdr will still explicitly compile in LDR or HDR mode only, respectively
- HDR data will not be remapped if LDR data is already present
- Therefore if you need different LDR and HDR lighting, compile with -ldr and -hdr separately
- NOTE: before the 22/10/25 update, VRAD++ would run in HDR mode by Default
- This has been reverted to stock behavior, with LDR mode being default
- Only -both will do the data remapping
- This was done for compatibility with other branches which VRAD++ is being ported to
- Bypassed "numplanes + fakeplanes >= MAX_MAP_PLANES" limit
- You will never see it again!
- Light count is now unlimited instead of capped at 8192
- Added appid mounting in gameinfo.txt
- Added shadow casting for dynamic props
- Set "vrad_model_cast_shadows 1" in the entity to enable this
- This is intended for props that won't move and can't be a static prop, for example resupply lockers in TF2
- Uses the first frame of sequence 0, or uses the animation set by "DefaultAnim" (like on "prop_dynamic")
- Modelscale is supported
- Added new "light_projected" light type
- Behaves like a env_projectedtexture but applied at compile time to lightmaps
- Same properties as light_spot, with an additional texturename key (path to VTF)
- Outer angle controls "size" of projected angle
- Alpha channel is multiplied with the output light (black - no light contribution)
- Non-square aspect ratios and roll angle are supported
- Renamed to "light_spot" after compilation so it can be toggled in-game
- Added support for "light_directional" light type
- Renamed to "light_spot" after compilation so it can be toggled in-game
- Added ambient occlusion baking
- Custom implementation that is an order of magnitude faster than AO in Slammin/CS:GO (!)
- Set -ambientocclusion or -ao to enable this
- Customize with -aoradius, -aoscale, -aopropsamples, -aofacesamples
- Samples are automatically adjusted for -fast and -final mode
- Default AO radius and scale is 32 units and 0.5 respectively
- Radius in 3D sky is correctly scaled (every other VRAD AO implementation has this bug)
- Use "-aodebug" to visualize ambient occlusion
- Added new QMC sampler for ambient, sunlight and ambient occlusion
- This allows lighting to converage to the ground truth faster
- Same sampler as used by modern raytracers, such as in Blender
- Less samples are required for a good result
- Since less samples are required, "-final" has now been reduced to "-extrasky 8" by default (from 16)
- Added soft lights
- When "_light_radius" keyvalue on a light is set, the light is treated as a sphere/disk
- Allows for casting softer shadows
- Note that soft lights will take longer to compile than hard lights
- Added "-extrasoft" parameter to control sample multiplier for soft lights
* Defaults are 1, 0.25 on "-fast", 4 on "-final"
- Currently only supports "light" and "light_spot"
- Added "-StaticPropSampleScale"
- Controls sample multiplier for prop vertex lighting (default is 1)
- Defaults to 4 with "-final", which will slightly increase compile times
- However this will improve quality of prop lighting in areas starved of sunlight or bounced surfaces
- Added -reflectivityscale
- Added -worldtextureshadows
- Allows $alphatest brush textures to cast proper shadows like props
- Requires -textureshadows
- Fixed bug where textureshadows doesn't work if top-left pixel is opaque
- Added -translucentshadows
- Similar to -worldtextureshadows but for $translucent brush textures
- Requires -textureshadows and -worldtextureshadows
- Added -forcetextureshadows
- Forces texture shadows to be enabled on all props
- Added DXT3 format support for texture shadows
- Added support for %alphatexture
- Allows overriding texture used for texture shadows on geometry
- Added geometric edge pairing for brush entities
- This helps reduce seams where they touch world geometry or other entities
- Added "-nopairgeometricedges" option to disable this behavior
- "vrad_brush_pair_edges" keyvalue can be used to disable this on a per-entity basis
- Also added "-nopairedges" to disable edge pairing on the same entity
- Added Light Culling
- Significantly improves performance for open maps that use a lot of lights
- Greatly reduces lightmap filesize of the map when using named lights
- Comparison on an open map:
- 4 minutes 23 seconds -> 3 minutes 1 second
- File size: 62 MB -> 52 MB
- "-nolightcull" can be used to disable this if it causes problems
- "minlightcullintensity" can be used to adjust the intensity cutoff threshold
- Default is 1 which is negligible levels of lighting
- Added experimental support for static props to shadow ambient cubes
- Disabled by default, use "-propambient" to enable
- Uses collision model of the static prop as the approximation
- Ambient cubes won't be generated inside solid static props
- Vertex lighting from the props will contribute to the ambient cubes
- "-StaticPropLighting" does not need to be enabled
- Note that this won't solve sunlight applying to entities shadowed by static props, as the engine ignores prop visiblity at runtime
- See <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/Facepunch/garrysmod-requests/issues/2932#issuecomment-3691574043">this page</a>for detailed info about this issue
- Added experimental support for named "light_environment" and "light_directional"
- Fixes static props having black lighting
- To use: you must "jail" the light entity by itself inside a nodraw cube in the void
- Not doing so will potentially lead to bad performance
- Named light environment still has engine bugs, mainly that props may have broken light after toggling the sunlight
- This can be workarounded by flipping the value of "r_radiosity" in console
- In GMod, Lua can be used for this
- In singleplayer games, you can issue a command with "point_clientcommand" or VScript
- Added support for "Patch" materials for loadng texture shadows
- Added support for processing L4D2, Portal 2 and HL2 (SDK13 Singleplayer) BSP formats
- Added "-patchlightmapsize" to set minimum lightmap size for patches (default is 16)
- This controls how faces with lower lightmap scales get subdivided for bounced lighting
- Lower values will subdivide more, at the cost of increased compile time and memory usage
- This may sometimes solve issues with thin surfaces obstructed by geometry not receiving light
- Added "-choptexlights"
- Allows subdivision of faces that have texlights
- Can create more smoother-looking lights from faces but may take longer to compute
- Added "-fastradial" for using fast radiosity gathering like in "-fast" mode
- Added support for "-LargeDispSampleRadius"
- Added "-dispsamplefactor"
- Controls radius of lighting influence multiplier for displacements. Default is 1
- Higher values such as 2.5 or 3 may fix black splotches on very large stretched displacements
- Added "-disppatchsamplefactor"
- Controls radius of *bounced* lighting influence multiplier for displacements. Default is 1
- Higher values may fix splotches of dark lighting on large, stretched displacements
- "-LargeDispSampleRadius" is the same as "-disppatchsamplefactor 2.2"
- Added "-indirectonly" to only bake indirect light
- Added support for using decimals in lightmap scales
- Added support for reading static prop formats v7 to v14
- Added "-report_search_paths" to list current search paths for debugging
- Added "-propdebug" for tracking down what props take a long time to compile
- Significantly improved performance and memory usage of bounced lighting on faces with low lightmap scales
- Slightly improved displacement bounced lighting to be more granular
- Benefits thin/small displacements the most
- Added "-DisplacementLightingOld" to use old calculations
- Improved vertex lighting for props
- Added -StaticPropIndirectMode to use old behavior if desired
- See <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/pull/1345">this page</a> for a comparison
- Improved performance of static prop loading when using "-StaticPropPolys"
- This also fixes hangs on very large and sparse props
- Fixed maps with more than 13 million triangles taking a very, very long time to compile
- Fixed black seams appearing on displacements in "-fast" mode
- Fixed rays missing exact diagonal corner intersections
- Both of these bug exists in all other versions of VRAD
- Fixed prop lightmaps being dumped into wrong color space with "-dumppropmaps"
- Prop lightmaps are also now dumped into "sp_lightmaps" directory of the game
- Fixed prop lightmaps always using "fast" lighting samples and ignoring "-extrasky"
- As a result, prop lightmaps will take slightly longer to compile, but will look significantly better
- Fixed maps with radial vis (FarZ set in "env_fog_controller") drawing 3D sky in 2Dsky-only areas
- Fixed light_environment SunSpreadAngle not using more samples under "-final"
- Maps using a spread angle greather than 0 will take slightly longer to compile with "-extrasky" as a result, but the result looks better compared to stock
- Fixed prop lightmaps causing very, very long compile times on models with invalid UVs
- Fixed "-OnlyStaticProps" crashing
- Redundant vertex lighting is skipped for lightmapped props (saves compile time and file size)
- .dx90.vtx data is loaded for vertex lighting instead of .dx80.vtx
- Broken vertex data for props will now be skipped over when compiling
- VPhysics is now an optional dependency (will compile successfully if its missing)
- Fixed bug where broken vertex data in props skipped vertex lighting for other props
- Fixed oversight where indirect lighting wasn't blended correctly with non-bump vs bump neighboring faces
- Fixed textureshadows defined in the .rad file not working if slashes were different
- Fixed rare crash related to surfaceprop parsing
- Fixed multiple "light_environment" or "light_directional" entities stomping over leaf sky flags
- Removed memory column from BSP statistics as its useless
- Named or styled lights are now sorted by brightness priority for faces
- Reduces occurence of bad lighting from overlapping named/styled lights
- Static prop lighting is no longer skipped on "-fast" mode
- Added -scale, -ambient, -dlight, -sky, -notexscale, -coring debug options
- Unlimited texlight support in .rad files
- Comments in .rad files are now skipped
- Cleaned up formatting of some messages and warnings
Installation:
Extract the zip and launch the "toolsplusplus_installer.exe" installer.
Manual installation (if installer doesn't work):
Place into your game's bin/x64/ or bin/win64/ folder (where normal vrad.exe is)
Update Hammer's game configuration to use vradplusplus.exe as the RAD compiler
Supported branches:
- Garry's Mod (x86-x64 beta)
- 64-bit SDK2013-based games, etc: Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Portal 2
- Alien Swarm
- Half Life 2
- SDK 2013 singleplayer
Maps for Half-Life 2 or SDK 2013 Singleplayer are supported. However you must still install VRAD++ in a 64-bit game
Optionally, add the "tools_plusplus.fgd" FGD file into Hammer's game configuration
Tools -> Options -> Game Configurations -> click Add beside Game Data files
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tools_plusplus.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 21st April, 2026)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>BSPZIP++</h1>
<pre>
BSPZIP++ is a rewrite of SDK2013 BSPZIP with some improvements
Changelog:
- Multithreaded LZMA compression
- Threads can be adjusted with "-threads N" parameter
- ".mp3", ".wav", ".ani" and ".vcs" (shaders) files are no longer compressed
- This prevents caching bugs in the engine
- See <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/issues/1322">this page</a> for more info
- Supports maps that exceed soft limits such as overlays, lights and entities
- Supports shared LDR/HDR data from VRAD++
- This prevents map sizes from inflating after packing content
- Supports Garry's Mod
- GMod's BSPZIP does not support compression (even though GMod's engine can load compressed maps)
- Now you can use BSPZIP++ to compress maps for GMod
- Supports SDK2013 Singleplayer BSPs
- Note that compression is NOT supported on the singleplayer engine
- Added "-verbose" flag for more detailed information
Installation:
Place into your game's bin/x64/ or bin/win64/ folder (where normal bspzip.exe is)
Update the tool you use for packing (e.g. CompilePal, bspzipgui) to use bspzipplusplus.exe instead of bspzip.exe
Supported branches:
- Garry's Mod (x86-x64 beta)
- 64-bit SDK2013-based games, etc: Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Maps for Half-Life 2 or SDK 2013 Singleplayer are supported. However you must still install BSPZIP++ in a 64-bit game
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tools_plusplus.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 6th April, 2026)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>StudioMDL++</h1>
<pre>
StudioMDL++ is a modification of SDK2013 StudioMDL with various new features and improvements
Changelog:
- Added appid mounting in gameinfo.txt
- Added -nodx80 option to not emit .dx80.vtx files
- Added "reverse" command for $sequence
- Added "pos" and "rot" options to "match" command for animations
- Added "copy" command for animations
- Added basic "if"/"else"/"else if" conditionals to animations
- Added default argument support to macros
- Added new $endmacro terminator for macros, allows omitting \\
- Added numeric input support for "$contents"
- Added better warnings for invalid bounding boxes in animations
- Added "-noremap" to disable sequence remapping with existing models
- Added "gmtime" option for "$sequence"s to flag as synced to UTC time
- Note: this requires mod support
- Added check for overflowing cmdlists
- Added "-cullanims" parameter to remove unreferenced $animations
- This can significantly reduce file size on large animation sets such as thirdperson animations
- "nocull" parameter can be added to an $animation to disable culling
- Made offset optional for $attachment, can be explicitly defined with "offset" token
- Significantly faster compilation
- Raised maximum amount of bones in the SOURCE mesh to 1024 (the output bone limit is still 128)
- $collisionmodel and $replacemodel no longer require explicitly providing extension name
- Implemented new rules for bone collapsing that prevent unexpected behavior, see below:
- If bone is marked by $alwayscollapse, its always collapsed no exceptions
- If bone is assigned to a vertex at any LOD, dont collapse
- If bone is used as a hitbox, don't collapse
- If bone is a $definebone, dont collapse
- If bone is used in an animation, dont collapse
- If bone is procedural, don't collapse
- If bone is part of ikchain, don't collapse
- If bone is used as $attachment, don't collapse
- If bone is used as $bonemerge, don't collapse
- Otherwise, collapse
- Fixed $renamebone not affecting the collision model
- Fixed crash if source bones limit is exceeded
- Fixed crash if blank bodygroup was used with $staticprop
- Fixed bogus animation data being printed in console
- Reduced default weight culling from 5% to 0.01%
- Removed limit for max number of animations
- Removed .sw.vtx output
Installation:
Place into your game's bin/x64/ folder (where normal studiomdl.exe is)
Update Crowbar (or Hammer's) game configuration to use studiomdlplusplus.exe as the MDL compiler
The only supported games are 64-bit SDK2013-based games, for example:
- Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Garry's Mod is <span class="error">NOT</span> supported.
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tools_plusplus.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 6th April, 2026)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>bsp_iidefeat</h1>
<pre>
Tool to recover map textures from the infamous IID nodraw anti-decompile protection on BSPs
Recovers majority of brush textures in the map. A bit of manual cleanup may still be needed.
If you encounter a protected map that does not work with this tool, let me know!
Updated: now supports fully removing "bspProtect" protection by Jakob Sailer.
Updated: now supports removing crashing/junk entities from "BSP Protection" by SpySpaille
Updated 30th September: supports removing latest version of bspProtect
Updated 1st October: supports recovering hint brushes. Pass -nohint to disable this if it causes issues
Updated 3rd October: added -entrecovery option to recover brush entities and lights from entity-stripped maps
Updated 14th October: fixed bugs with light recovery, corrupt lumps are now skipped
Usage: run from cmd to see help options
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/bsp_iidefeat.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 14th October, 2025)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>check_mdl</h1>
<pre>
Python script to check MDLs for corrupted vertex data
There is an unknown compiler bug where models very rarely have corrupt LOD data
Such corrupt models cause client crashes when decals are applied or users have lower graphics settings
This tool can identify those so they can be recompiled
Originally made to identify problematic props in the Greek Theme Pack for TF2
Usage: install Python, run the script inside a folder of models you want to check
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/check_mdl.py">Download</a> (Last updated: 9th March, 2024)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>cubemap2hdr</h1>
<pre>
Converts a cubemap in LDR color format to HDR
Particularly useful for Left 4 Dead 2 where LDR cubemaps will look broken
Usage: drag and drop a cubemap onto the exe
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/cubemap2hdr.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: November 11th, 2024)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>tga2skybox</h1>
<pre>
Converts 6 tga files into a cubemap VTF, and automatically creates a LDR and HDR version
Applies correction to the edges to blur seams as well
Useful for fake skyboxes with WindowImposter shader
Usage: run the tool and follow instructions
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/tga2skybox.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 31st May, 2024)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>vtf_downscale</h1>
<pre>
CLI tool to downscale a VTF to a lower mipmap losslessly. Useful to reduce file size without re-compressing the texture
Supports mass-automatic downscaling (for example to only downscale all 2048x2048 or higher textures)
Usage: run from cmd to see help options
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/vtf_downscale.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 15th August, 2024)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>vtfstripalpha</h1>
<pre>
CLI tool to remove the alpha channel from VTFs without quality loss. Useful to reduce file size
Supports mass-automatic detection and removal of blank (white) alpha channels
Unfortunately, I lost the source code for this tool...
Usage: run from cmd to see help options
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/vtfstripalpha.zip">Download</a> (Last updated: 24th August, 2022)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>proptexelvtf</h1>
<pre>
Converts a prop_static lightmap (.ppl file extracted from BSP) into VTF
Usage: drag and drop a .ppl onto the exe
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/proptexelvtf.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: Jan 11, 2021)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>vtf_fix_mip2</h1>
<pre>
Removes LOD settings from VTFs
Was useful to make some TF2 textures appear high-resolution, now obsolete as mat_picmip -10 is allowed again
Usage: put the exe into the desired folder of textures and run
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/vtf_fix_mip2.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 13th April, 2021)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>dds_to_vtf</h1>
<pre>
Converts a DDS texture to VTF directly without quality loss (automatically chooses closest matching format)
Mainly made this to easily convert textures from IW engine to Source, not tested on many types of DDS files
Usage: drag and drop a .dds onto the exe
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/dds_to_vtf.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 6th March, 2024)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>file_to_nut</h1>
<pre>
Converts binary file to Squirrel array
Usage: drag and drop a file
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/file_to_nut.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 22nd September, 2023)
</div>
<div class="patch">
<h1>sq</h1>
<pre>
Standalone version of Squirrel language interpreter that supports bytecode disassembly of scripts
Usage: sq -c myscript.nut > myscript.cnut
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ficool2/misc_tools/releases/download/v1/sq.exe">Download</a> (Last updated: 8th April, 2025)
</div>
</article>
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