An open-sourced alternative for all fans of Half-Life modding
Main developer:
Unkle Mike (aka G-Cont, aka Дядя Миша)
Xash3D Engine has been tested for compatibility with many of GoldSource games and MODs. At this moment it should provide you an ability to successfully complete almost any existing singleplayer Half-Life mod without compatibility problems. Some mods can be not totally compatible, if they are too hardly modified or use some very specific undocumented features of GoldSource engine. Also multiplayer part of Xash3D Engine is not fully completed yet because of lack of free time for its' development & lack of support and testing provided by community. So in most cases multiplayer mods should work good, but some features may not work or work not exactly as with GoldSource engine. Check pinned articles & tutorials for the detailed list of tested mods and maps. A list of Xash3D Engine features is also there, plus a guide on how to get work Half-Life and its' mods under Xash3D (in English and in Russian).
Xash3D is the powerful independent open-sourced 3D-engine, aimed for high compatibility with GoldSource engine formats (maps, models, textures, sounds, entities etc.), but with the intention to be an advanced platform for modmaking or game development. Technically it has been built from a scratch, using as totally original ideas, as some ideas from other 3D-engines. Xash3D overcomes obsolete GoldSource engine's limits and provides for you a new quality of gaming experience and modmaking capabilities, as extended map, model, texture & sound formats with higher limits, possibility to implement custom renderers with dynamic lighting and other modern features. Xash3D is the easy-to-use base to play existing Half-Life mods & create something new, impossible with GoldSource. Years of development & testing allowed to make from Xash3D a perfect mix of high compatibility with common GoldSource standards & high openness to creative modmaking ideas.
Disclaimer: Half-Life & GoldSource are trademarks of Valve Corporation.All Half-Life assets or modded contents are copyright to their respective owners and are protected under international copyright laws. You have to purchase a legal copy of Half-Life to use it with Xash3D.
Thanks to:
HLFX.ru & CSM.dev (former CS-mapping.com.ua) forum members - help, support, testing
CortexReaver, nemyax - English documentation
Hi, guys! The time has came and long-awaited updates of Xash3D Engine were released! Newest builds fix many problems, including very old ones and those which appeared following global changes applied to the engine during last two years of development. Also they brings better support for some mods, which had different problems with Xash3D initially (on any build). For examlple - Cry of Fear (mod version 1.0 - 1.55), Cthulhu: An Unspeakable Modification for Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, Half-Life: Decay, Reissues, Chinatown Preview. As usually, there are some improved or newly added features too. You can download the final build of this year and see the full list of latest changes here:
If you install the engine in your first time, please, make sure to install all engine's files properly, including extras for "valve" folder. Otherwise some things will not work as intended or will not work at all. Detailed manual is here. For questions about mods' support refer to 2 new articles: #1 & #2. Remember that some nowaday mods (or their new versions) which depend on updated Steam Half-Life libraries may be not supported (or have to be patched with old or compatible versions of their game dlls to work with Xash3D). Also most of multiplayer mods were not tested thoroughly, but if you have your own experience & found some problems, please report. In most cases, any mods which worked correctly with old WON version of Half-Life, should work correctly with Xash3D too.
As for previous builds, the same rule works for this build too: DO NOT USE it with any of previously released versions of Xash3D games/mods, such as XashXT, Paranoia 2: Savior, Quake Remake, Area 51. Until they are not updated, they will not work with the new engine.
Fortunately, the XashXT update is already released also! So you can use it now with the latest engine's build. Since the version 0.65 a lot of things are added and fixed. Some of new features: support up to 64 weapons, better visual debugging system, faster grass code, faster code of dynamic lighting and world's rendering (including using a power of GPU for lightstyles and hardware interpolation of lightstyles), better fog, partial support of terrains from Paranoia 2, advanced mirrors' rendering (including mirrors reflecting in each other), special events for spawning Aurora particles from studiomodels (5040-5044), totally new studiomodels renderer with a support of LODs, bone weighting, jingle bones, inverse kinematics, multiple blending of sequences, per-vertex lighting for prop-models, added sunshafts (like in Crysis or Paranoia), Opposing Force-like ropes, better tracktrain control, new entity trigger_dsp_zone for better DSP effects, new entities func_transporter и conveyor_setspeed for better control of conveyors... Just grab it and explore the new possibilities!
Along with new engine's build we're also proud to present a new Unkle Mike's project - Quake Wrapper (QWrap). It's a mod for Xash3D Engine which can launch original Quake game and its mods. It makes no changes to Quake's gameplay, but provides more handy game interface and controls. We decided to release it in the Games section, though it's not an independent game exactly. But this should provide a more comfortable way to release potential updates/information or discuss the project, because it quite differs from common Xash3D-related things and Half-Life theme.
If you'd like to support Unkle Mike and buy him some beer inspire him for further development of Xash3D, you can donate him some money via:
This article is about those singleplayer Half-Life mods which use non-standard game code. In most cases, their code is only Windows-compatible, so they...
Original Xash3D Engine by Unkle Mike (Windows version) supports wide variety of Half-Life mods, from simple 1-map mods to mods which change everything...
Hello, if you are new with how to use Xash3D Engine to run Half-Life and its' mods, this manual is for you. Just follow the instruction and have fun!
Porting of resources from the old MIR has been completed. I had to manually assign thousands of materials, and convert all the models into the .blend...
Welcome to the Skolkovo Research Facility. If you are here by accident, please kill yourself immediately as possible. This complex - top secret and strictly...
1K Mapping Contest was supposed to demonstrate game design possibilities of then-new XashXT 0.63. The contest given us a couple pretty great maps which...
Paranoia 2: Savior (2019 update 1.51beta) is survival horror styled first person shooter taking place in a secret underground laboratory facility «KROT»...
Игра по мотивам вселенной Half-Life.../A game based on the Half-Life universe ...
My experiment to convert HL2 materials to HL textures, automate this process and also keep readable filenames.
Quake Wrapper - it's technically a mod for Xash3D Engine, which uses Xash3D Engine as a shell to launch original Quake game and even its' mods. Gameplay...
Paranoia 2 Savior — first-person shooter in the style of survival horror, which is unfolding in a secret underground laboratory facility somewhere in...
The development of an entirely new Secret Operation. With the new engine, and a new approach. This project is a large scale, compared with the previous...
Hey was thinking of starting a mod and needed a bigger total map size limit for it to really be feasible. I'm aware that this engine has expanded the Goldsrc limits quite a bit but after researching I couldn't pull up anything on this engine having a bigger max map size limit. Just asking to see if it actually does or if there's an alternative way to do it. Thanks in advance!
You need new map compilers from XashXT devkit:
Moddb.com
Or check: PrimeXT
Snmetamorph.github.io
Also a sample of using customized tools:
Csm.dev
Thanks for responding! I'll try using this and see how they work.
Should i now use this version (build 4344) or should i use FWGS?
Since Uncle Mike whether he abandoned this project or maybe not. I still recommend Xash3D FWGS since it has improvements & other features than Uncle Mike's. Also Flying with Gauss is almost step closer completing their engine. They could release a stable version of it soon. But, actually just choose whatever it suits you.
Time to choose...
Hello, Is there way how to enable touch controlls for Windows port of this engine like on Android? It would be great with touch controlls on Windows tablets like Surface pro/RT :) Maybe u could make that option possible if there is not that option available. For some donation :P thx for reply.
Use FWGS version for PC, it allows to enable touch controls in game menu. Github.com
Hi, its there any improvement graphically speaking for the original half life in this new engine?
It's engine, not a graphical mod of some kind. So it has improvements, but without modifying the original game. It's kinda about to give you more freedom to change something if you want it. Like higher limits of everything available with GoldSource + better support for things like high quality sounds, high res textures, high poly models, advanced animation features, dynamic lighting, RTX, physics and such.