This is a tool designed to make it easier to implement 3D models into Valve Software’s Source game engine, better to say, KAFF Softwares port of that engine with support for physically based rendering.
It offers a pipeline to compile .smd 3D mesh data and .png or .tga pixel textures to .mdl with PBR materials.
Here’s what it does:
– Create a PBR texture map from a metallic, a roughness, and an ambient occlusion map
– Wrap VTFCmd.exe to generate Source engine compatible .vtf texture files from images and a .vmt material descriptor file
– Generate model and texture mapping descriptor .qc file, necessary for compilation of 3D model with textures
– Wrap studiomdl.exe to compile Source engine compatible binary .mdl and .phy files from .smd and .qc files among others – the file formats which are expected by the engine
Drag & drop texture images on the tool to generate specific PBR-materials that can be used in the production of the game Boreal Alyph.
The first three added textures will be merged into a single texture map, one texture per color channel (metallic, roughness, ambient occlusion).
For each of these, the tool offers the option for color inversion before merging them.
The tool then asks for an albedo-, normal- and height-texture map, converts everything to .vtf and writes a corresponding .vmt with the use of vtfcmd.exe.
As last step, the tool asks for .smd 3D model files. It then generates a .qc corresponding to the models and textures and then compiles the model .mdl and .phy files (among others) by controlling studiomdl.exe.
Example model used:
A mesh of a wooden pallet with textures for real time physically based rendering and a collision hull mesh.
Blender can export mesh data in .smd format.
So this is what we got as input:
And this is what the tool makes out of it, which is (Boreal Alyph) Source Engine compatible:
