Wall Worm Forums

I wanted to give everyone a heads up on where I am with Wall Worm in Source 2 along with a general roadmap.

First, I've planned on doing Source 2 for years, but I never felt the need yet because of limited games and documentation. CS2 forced my hand on the issue to a degree.

First, expectations. Although I am passionate about WW and maintaining it, the reality is that the amount of time I have for developing WW these days is relegated to the weekends. And truthfully, I often don't want to be at a computer on weekends. So it's really down to when I feel inspired.

Where I am with S2:

Right now I have tools to export WWMT to DMX and VMDL. The support is currently limited to creating a simple VMDL document that will reference the main meshes and collision hulls. My intent is to make WWMT functionality as robust for S2 as S1 but it will take some time.

Once I get enough personal testing of the current VMDL Export with mesh and hulls, I'll release it for testing.

VMDL Export support

• CVMeshList from WWMT Meshes
• CVphysicsMeshList from WWMT Collision Hulls
• Basic settings in Mesh/Hull data from WWMT

Next:

• Animation Sequences
• BodyGroups
• LODs
• Morphs

VMAT Export support

I have not yet started on this. Since my understanding is that S2 is PBR, I might be able to simplify the material authoring with the PBR material that ships with Max.

VMAP Export support

I have looked at the VMAP format briefly and I understand it's a version of DMX. Hopefully I can get that done sometime in 2024.

VMDL Loader

Loading VMDL into Max like the MDL Loader is high on my priority but I would not expect it before the end of 2024.

I have gotten around of updates done internally. At this point here is what is supported:

WWMT:

• Meshes
• Hulls
• Export to VMDL + model assets (dmx, fbx or smd)
• Support for some WWMT settings
  
• Compiling to VMDL_C

Materials:

• Material to VMAT
• Support for Max's PBR Material

I'm hopeful that by the holidays I'll have Sequences, LODs, Skins and breakable props implemented. Once those basic set of features are done, I'll release an update to the public.

Features I have working as of now in my local build:

• WWMT can export LODS
• Level Exporter can export basic scene with entities to VMAP
• MAXScript FGD Parser now supports the CS2 FGD

I now have support for exporting:

• WWMT Sequences
• WWMT Skins

Now WW can export:

• Bodygroups

Now S2 support in WWMT in my local build for:

• Attachments

In my local build I now can export:

• Prop Data
• Custom Gibs (breakable prop)
• Basic Hitbox info

• WW Pro FGD Parser for S2 in Max 2022+
• Multiple Datas in VMap Export (cameras, entities, basic mesh)

I got stalled out last month with my day job so I didn't make much progress since then. This weekend I troubleshooted some issues with exporting a VMap. Still digging into why some scenes are working and some are not.

• Entity Output Connections in VMap
• Support for PBRMetalRough material in the main Material Exporter
• Started new Custom Attribute for S2 Materials

I haven't had a lot of time to work on WW for several months. I learned this week that WW had been causing pop-up errors for CS2 because the FGD Parser in WW wasn't supporting some new changes in the FGD.

I took time to address that problem today and put out WW 6.2.

The items I want to look at next are proper Brush/Displacement support and Blend Materials. Those are the two items outstanding to get the full level design workflow in S2 on par with S1. As it stands, the brush export only works for single mesh brushes and the UVs are not correct. Displacement support is currently missing in full. I am hopeful I can find some time over the Christmas holidays to do that.

Just a quick update as I've had a few inquiries in the last couple of weeks. I'm still stalled on updating WW for S2 and haven't made appreciable progress since the last post. I still fully intend to continue the S2 work but just haven't had the energy after my day-job these days.

In terms of next steps, I still need to get proper brush/displacements exporting followed by more material exports. Blend materials is high on list and I also plan to add support for the OpenPBR material that is now in Max 2025.3.