Welcome to my poorly made guide on making awful mods! I hope this will help you make your very own meme infested, absolutely terrible, lazily made mods.

Okay cool, let's get started, enough with the intros, let's do what you came here to do.

First of all, you're gonna need some programs to actually let you do this.

If you wanna do ANY type of modding in a source engine game, you're gonna need a program called GCFScape. This will let you open up and extract the contents of VPK files. What's a VPK file? We'll get into that later.

Download it from: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/?p=26

This one is only useful if you wanna edit textures, maybe make a pink hello kitty glock or something. This program lets you open up those VTF files and export them for editing.

Download it from: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=178

If you wanna make a sound mod, you'll obviously need a program like Audacity to edit the sound files.

For editing texture files, and whatnot. I use Paint Net.

Okay, got everything? Great, let's get started.

Okay, so, you've got your tools, you've got some ideas. Now you just need to find the files you need to edit to make it a reality.

First, navigate yourself on over to the directory of Black Mesa's files, at
Steam\steamapps\common\Black Mesa\bms
Now scroll down. See those files with weird names that have a weird icon?
Those right there are VPK files. Every source engine game has them, and every source engine game needs them. Know why? Because that's where all the models, sounds, textures, scripts and stuff are located.

















So, you might wanna open those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, and get working, but just wait a second.

!!!
Do NOT open the numbered files, instead what you wanna do instead is open one of the directory files (The ones ending in _dir.) sound_vo_english_dir for anything voice related, sounds_misc_dir for everything else.
!!!































Welcome to the sound directory!
You can probably work out where everything is stored at this point, but for this guide I'll be making a mod for the .357 revolver. So let's go over to the files for it and drag and drop them to a convenient spot.































Oh boy, this looks familiar huh? Just like the sound mod, OPEN UP THE DIRECTORY FILE. NOT THE NUMBERED FILES.
There is noticeably more files in this one, but that's fine.


































It may take a little bit to open and view every VTF file, but once you find what you wanna edit, drag and drop it to anywhere you find convenient enough.

So you got your tools, your ideas, and now you have the files you need too!
Awesome! Let's get started.

First, make a folder, and name it whatever you want. In my case it would be "POW! .357"
After that's done, you want to recreate the EXACT file path to the files your mod contains. Where do you get the file path? Open up the VPK and follow the series of folders up to the one with the sounds you're editing. In my case, it would be like this.










Did it? Great, now open up those sounds with an audio editing program and get working!
Though, do remember some things.

• The rate must be 44100 Hz. If it's anything else, it won't play ingame.
  
• The audio file has to be output as 16-bit, otherwise you may unleash the world's loudest static.
  
• The audio file's name MUST remain exactly the same as it was in the files.
  
• The most important rule is to have fun.

So you got your tools, your ideas, and now you have the files you need too!
Awesome! Let's get started.

Like the sound mod, make a folder to contain your mod and name it anything you like.
In my case it would be "Gaben Picture"
Like the sound mod, recreate the exact file path to the files you're editing, like this.






Now you may be wondering: How do I edit this ♥♥♥♥? And I say to you, shut the ♥♥♥♥ up and calm down because I'm about to tell you. Open up the VTF files you've extracted, and hover over File, then select "Export." Pick a spot to export it to, and open up the TGA file for editing.






You're done editing the file? Good! Save it as a TGA file and open up the VTF file again. Hover over File again, but this time click "Import." Leave all of the settings it displays alone. After your newly edited file is displayed in the program, click "Save As" and replace the file in your mod's folder. Remember to keep the name of it exactly the same as before! Congratulations, you've just made a texture mod.

A Valve Pak File is what contains all materials, sounds, music and models in games created with Source Engine, as I've already told you.

This also applies to mods, though. You can't just drag the folder containing your mod into the files and expect it to work. You have to put it all into a VPK.

To do this, navigate to Steam\steamapps\common\Black Mesa\bin and find the program called "vpk.exe"

Create a shortcut of it and place it wherever you feel it'd be best. Drag your mod folder onto your vpk.exe shortcut, and a window will appear briefly. This is normal. After 1-10 seconds of waiting, your brand new shiny VPK file is ready.

If you're a sane person, you'd wanna test your mod and make sure it works properly before unleashing it's wrath upon the workshop. To do this, you're gonna want to set up a "custom" folder in the game's files. I won't be talking about that here though, since there's already a guide that tells you how to do that.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=502670746

But anyway, after putting your mod's VPK into the custom folder, load up the game and see if it worked! If your sound mod doesn't work, try typing snd_restart into the console. If it still doesn't work after that, curl into a ball and cry in the corner while rethinking your life decisions.

So, you've crafted your mod with love and care, you've tested it, it works great, and now you're ready to send your little mod into the big wide world for the first time.

...But how do you upload it?

Well first, if you've made a sound mod, you should record a video of it in action, then start uploading it so it's ready by the time you get your mod on the workshop.

Also if you've made a texture mod, obviously you should have a screenshot of it ready.

Before you upload your mod, you need to make a thumbnail for it, so the workshop actually has an image to display when people are scrolling by. You can use any image editing software, but I use Paint Net. Also, you can use almost any size as long as it isn't too big. I make mine 240x240 or 555x312.













Yeah, that'll do.


The way Black Mesa does workshop uploading is strange. You have to make a folder, you can name it anything you want, and put your VPK in it. It must be the only thing inside of the folder.


















Make your way back to Steam\steamapps\common\Black Mesa\bin and find the file "blackmesa_publish.exe"
This is what you will use to upload your mods.
After opening blackmesa_publish, click the "Create new content" button. Fill in all the information it requests. The user generated content folder path is the path to that folder you made and put your VPK into. Once everything is set, upload that bastard.

After your mod has been uploaded, go to your Steam profile, and click "Workshop Items" to find your new mod. Edit all the information you want or need to edit, then when you're ready, set the privacy to public. Congratulations, you've added one more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ meme mod to the workshop.

Thanks for reading my awful, crappily made guide with poor grammar and awful instructions. If this actually helped you I'll be surprised.

Also I didn't make that "Setting Up A Custom Folder" guide, that was made by a guy named Citizen, used without permission, probably gonna get sued, I hope not, oh well.

Also I don't know how to do mods that involve models or maps in any way, so don't ask plz, tanx.