Last night Valve released a major update for the Half-Life Alyx , which adds integration with the Steam Workshop , to which is added compatibility with the Linux operating system (recommends using AMD graphics and the Mesa RADV driver) as well as for the Vulkan rendering API . Additionally, they made some fixes to the game: fixing hands that could shake, optimizations for the GPU in the rendering of the fog and the CPU for the NPCs.
With the arrival of the Workshop the community can create a large number of levels, models, textures, and animations, that is, the game will now give endless hours of VR realism, either with the creation of new missions or simply creating new modes of the game.
Half-Life: Alyx level editing tools are now available to the community! You can create new levels, models, textures, and animations for Half-Life: Alyx, and the Steam Workshop allows you to see and play everything that the community has uploaded.
Do you want to create your own experimental VR physics space or a gigantic Rube Goldberg machine? Design a new combat showdown with a dozen Alliance soldiers at once? And how about assembling the world’s longest multi-tool puzzle, or imagining a whole new City 17 district? Open the tools and make it happen! If you just want to play community creations, explore the Half-Life: Alyx Steam Workshop page to try out the latest and most popular add-ons.
This is the first beta version of the Half-Life: Alyx Workshop Toolkit, and we plan to improve and add more in the coming weeks. This beta includes new or updated versions of the following tools:
- Hammer , the latest version of the Source 2 level editor.
- Material Editor , the tool for creating and adjusting materials in Source 2.
- ModelDoc , a tool to view, edit and compile models with animation, collision and other gameplay attributes.
- AnimGraph , our animation tool used to create complicated animation setups with mixes and transitions.
- Particle Editor , to create new particle effects.
- Subrect Editor , to create smart texture sheets known as “hotspots”.
- Source Filmmaker , Source 2’s movie renderer and animation tool.
In addition to these tools, the update comes with several sample maps. We’ve included them to show and explain how we’ve created in-game enemy engagements, as well as to highlight some new features of Half-Life: Alyx’s artistic level-building process, including tile meshes, static and dynamic cables, and texture hot spots. The full Half-Life: Alyx map set is also included as an editable reference source (this includes a large collection of interactive and pre-made objects). In a future update, we will bring out news about other features, as well as some additional minor tools and examples.
We have also started writing documentation on the tools in the Half-Life Workshop: Alyx. If you want to start working on your first plugin, this is a good starting point. This is the beta version of the development suite and we are still writing the documentation for many of these tools, but we hope that in the meantime you will dive into them and learn by exploring on your own. We can’t wait to see your creations!
