The Source Engine is a source-available proprietary licensed 3D game engine written in [[C++]]. - [Documentation](https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SDK_Installation) - [Steam Community Page](https://steamcommunity.com/app/211#scrollTop=0) - [Source](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013) (2013 non-commercial, abandoned) - [Bug Tracker](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games) (also including Source 1 games) > Source is a 3D game engine created by Valve in 2004, and is the successor to GoldSrc. The Source engine is well-known for its advancements in physics, AI, and graphics which made the games realistic for its time, while being scalable on older, less powerful hardware. \- https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source # Notability ## Games Used for the majority of [[Valve]] games. The ones that aren't using Source are using its direct predecessor [[GoldSrc]] or its direct successor [[Source 2]]. - [[Half-Life 2]] - [[Team Fortress 2]] - [[Portal]] - [[Portal 2]] ### Third Party Games New releases using the Source Engine are becoming rarer, but modders still actively use it. It has a rich and broad ecosystem. - [[Garry's Mod]] - [[Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines]] - [[E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy]] - [[The Stanley Parable]] - [[Black Mesa]] - [[Titanfall 2]] - [[Voices of the Void]] ## Descendants - [[Source 2]] - direct successor, used by [[Half-Life Alyx]] - [[Strata Engine]] - https://stratasource.org/ (closed source licensed fork based on [[Counter Strike Global Offensive]]'s branch of the Source Engine) - [[XenEngine]] - available with Black Mesa (closed source licensed fork) - [[IW Engine]] - used by [[Call of Duty]] ## SDK Forks - [[Mapbase]] - Not technically an engine, but an SDK modification, very actively developed - [Source](https://github.com/Nbc66/source-sdk-2013-ce) (unofficial "Community Edition" with bugfixes, active) - [Source](https://github.com/ENDERZOMBI102/Aurora-Source) ("Aurora" fork, no MacOS support, active) - [Source](https://github.com/tonysergi/source-sdk-2013/commits/master/) (includes some code from other games? abandoned) # History Source is the successor to the [[SrcGold]] engine, which was itself a heavily modified [[id Tech 2]] engine. Source's editor called "[[Hammer Editor]]" was acquired by Valve from a 3rd party developer who built a [[id Tech 2|Quake Engine]] editor called "Worldcraft". # Philosophy Geared towards first person shooters with few exceptions in its catalog. Though those exceptions are quite notable. Source is largely dead-end engine without a major revision since the mid 2010s when the [[Source 2]] engine started development. [Source 2013](https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_SDK_2013) is the last titled iteration. Numerous game-specific SDKs exist for Valve and non-Valve games that use the Source engine. A 2015 snapshot of the source code for Source is available on Github for non-commercial use only. For paid products, the non-commercial license says to contact Valve. # OS Support Only supports Windows development, though it supports targets on many major OS and consoles. # Features Various scripting languages are commonly used with it, including [[Squirrel]] and [[Lua]]. # Tips ## Console Pass command line argument to enable debug console: ```sh -console ``` ## Show FPS ```sh cl_showfps 2 ``` # Resources - https://valvedev.info/tools/ # References