Half-Life Asset Manager V2.0.0

Half-Life Asset Manager V2.0.0 Released

Half-Life Asset Manager V2.0.0 has been released. You can download the new version below.

What's New In V2.0.0

Many things have changed in V2.0.0. See the full changelog for a complete list of changes and bug fixes.

Asset Manager's executable files have been moved from the bin directory to the main installation directory. Make sure to use the offline installer to set up the file association or use Windows' Open With option to select the correct executable.

Asset Manager now includes a manual explaining how the program's features work. You can open it by going to Help->Open Manual... or find it in the manual directory in the installation directory.

Alternatively you can read it online here.

You'll have to reconfigure the program after installing V2.0.0 since previous settings do not carry over. This should not be a problem with future changes unless they involve changing specific settings.

Asset Manager is now mostly functional on Linux but there are still graphical issues that require fixing before a proper release can be made available. Development builds can be downloaded from Github Actions.

More Options In Menus

Most audio and video settings are now accessible in dedicated menus to allow for easy access.

The Studiomodel compiler and decompiler frontends have been removed with the option to launch Crowbar added in its place. Crowbar is a better option for these tasks than the old frontends.

File Browser

A file browser has been added to allow fast navigation in game directories and to allow filtering of files by type. This hides files with a specific extension that HLAM cannot open, but this comes at the cost of having to check each file which results in temporary freezing.

This feature will be developed further in a future release to improve performance.

Messages Window

A messages window has been added to show errors and diagnostics output. Useful when you need to see what's going on behind the scenes.

External Program support

For file extensions used by this program that are not supported by the program there is now an option to specify a program to use. See the manual for a list of supported formats.

This also includes Xash model support. Asset Manager now has an option to choose how to handle Xash models. Additionally saving Xash models now warns about potential loss of data.

Game Configuration Support

The Game Configurations options page has been completely reworked to make setting up configurations easier. It now uses absolute paths and shows examples, patterned after Hammer's configuration style.

Additionally a wizard has been added to largely automate the creation of configurations. It will scan a game directory for installed games and mods and creates configurations for them.

Asset Manager will now automatically detect which configuration to use based on the location of the file being opened and creates configurations for loose files not located in a game directory.

This video shows the new configuration system in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAvW9U022Wg

Persistent User Interface

The user interface layout is now remembered between opened files and after closing and reopening the program allowing you to customize the layout as you see fit.

You can always reset it to its default layout using Asset->Reset Dock Widgets.

Sleeker Interface Design

The user interface has been redesigned to reduce the size of individual dock widgets to make the interface easier to work with on smaller resolutions. Some widgets have been merged together to reduce the complexity of the interface.

Plans for V3.0.0

V3.0.0 will feature the long-awaited move to a more modern graphics backend. This should improve performance and allow some graphical issues to be fixed, as well as allowing the addition of new features.

There is no release date for V3.0.0 but once the initial conversion has been completed test builds will be made available to try it out on various systems to determine if there are problems with it.

These test builds will be made available on Github just like all releases so keep an eye out if you want to try it out later.