Exporting Models

As part of our assignment we will need to have access to as many items as possible. As our game is going to be constructed using the Half-Life engine, it means that some of the most useful models and characters to use, such as the Pyro from Team Fortress 2, are normally inaccessible. There are however some ways to get around this. This is not always the best option however, as any user that wants to use the map that has been created most own all the content that has been used in the map. Otherwise it simply won’t work.

The basic principle behind getting models and items into a separate engine is to mount the games ‘.gcf’ files while hammer is running with the engine open. While this can sound simple, it can often be very confusing and at times, simply isn’t worth doing. There is however, some third party software that makes this task slightly easier by allowing access to the files that are needed. They can then be extracted and mounted and then accessed in the editor. This can be a tedious process, and one that isn’t very practical. While it is nice to have the option to be able to use the models from other Valves games, it would be a lot easier if Hammer had access to these files from the start.

There are a number of programs that make the files viewable in a browser, the most commonly used of these is; GCFScape. GCFScape allows the user to view all the files that are associated with the various Valve games. Once the user is able to locate the files that are needed then they will be able to mount them into Hammer and they will be accessible. This can be a very complicated way to get around the problem. Getting the models from one game into another game is not simple, as Valve wanted each game to stand alone.

Another possible way to move models from one engine to another is again using GCFScape and extracting a precise file and then simply adding the models in the standard way.