Valve released Half-Life: Alyx at the end of March to universal acclaim, making it the biggest – and most widely recognised – virtual reality (VR) title of 2020. Known for its community mod support, Valve has now updated the videogame to include Steam Workshop support.
Available as a beta release, support allows anyone access to Half-Life: Alyx’s level editing tools. Fans can create new levels, models and animations or browse and play content the community has built.
In the past, the active Half-Life community has built all sorts of content for the previous versions, and Half-Life: Alyx is likely to be no different. Add-on’s already available include Crash Course a short campaign.
This beta release of tools new or updated versions of:
- Hammer, the latest version of the Source 2 level editor.
- Material Editor, the tool for creating and tuning materials in Source 2.
- ModelDoc, a tool for viewing, editing, and compiling models with animation, collision, and other gameplay attributes.
- AnimGraph, our animation tool used to create complicated animation setups with blends and transitions.
- Particle Editor, for making new particle effects.
- Subrect Editor, for creating smart texture sheets known as “hotspots.”
- Source Filmmaker, the Source 2 cinematic renderer and animation tool.
These will all be added to and improved upon in the near future. Several sample maps have also been included: “We’ve included these to demonstrate and explain how we authored enemy encounters in the game, as well as showcase some new features of the Half-Life: Alyx level art pipeline including tile meshes, static and dynamic cables, and texture hotspotting,” says Valve.
For those new to modding Valve has begun creating Half-Life: Alyx Workshop Tools documentation as a good starting resource. This is also still ongoing, so some tools may not have fully complete documentation yet.
VRFocus reviewed Half-Life: Alyx giving the title a full five-star rating, saying: “A stunningly rich experience from start to finish, Half-Life: Alyx is one of the best VR titles available, a perfect showcase for what VR gaming is capable of. It doesn’t exactly break new ground, instead providing familiar Half-Life gameplay all wrapped up in a highly polished VR gift bag.” For further Half-Life: Alyx updates, keep reading VRFocus.