Welcome to Garry's Mod! Remember, the only limit is your imagination! (And VAC bans.) Once you have GMod purchased/downloaded, you can launch the game! This step is the easiest of the bunch.

The main menu is the menu shown when you start Garry's Mod. It contains ten options to choose from, each with a specific purpose. The background consists of a slide show of various images created using Garry's Mod. You wanna make sure that, for now, you select "Start New Game" AKA Singleplayer Mode.

To play a map alone, click on "Start New Game" and two maps should show up. Either double-click to launch the map directly with default settings, or click once on one of the maps to select it. Then, choose the settings on the right side, either Singleplayer or more players, and launch the map! It'll take a bit, but if you have a fast computer, then this is a breeze!

If you selected "2 Players" or more, you can use SHIFT+TAB to open the Steam Overlay, right click on a friend and click "Invite to Play". If you do it right, in a bit he can accept the invite and join your session!

It's not a doubt that Garry's Mod is a sandbox game, and with that comes a lot of predefined keys for noclipping, flashlight, and much more.

By pressing V, you will be able to noclip through the map and everywhere else. You will still be vulnerable to guns and other deadly entities.

With F, you can turn on the flashlight and see much better in dark places.

With ALT, you walk and SHIFT allows you to run.

WASD for movement, E for interacting with other objects and picking up lighter ones.

SCROLL WHEEL to switch between tools.

Q to open the spawnmenu (you may know this already).

CTRLto crouch, pretty simple.

This is by far one of the most important tools on Garry's Mod. The Physics Gun (commonly referred to as the Physgun) is a tool that allows its user to manipulate most entities, with the exception of other players. It allows the user to lift, rotate, and even freeze an object, preventing it from being affected by physics.

- Abilities + Usage
Holding down LMB makes the Physics Gun emit a blue beam from the front of the gun. Any entity that the beam touches will be grabbed by the gun and can then be manipulated.

Freezing
RMB allows you to freeze the held object in place regardless of where it is.

Manipulation
Holding down E allows the player to rotate a grabbed object. By also holding down ⇧ SHIFT, the player can rotate the object at an angle specified in degrees by the convar gm_snapangles (default 45).

By scrolling the mouse wheel or holding E and pressing S or W, a grabbed object can be moved towards or away from the player.

Unfreezing
Pressing R while aiming at a frozen prop or ragdoll allows the player to unfreeze it. Pressing R twice in quick succession will unfreeze all props spawned by that player.

If you want to build massive things (or even small things), start posing, or even making obnoxious things, you're gonna have to use the Toolgun once in a while atleast. The Tool Gun is one of the most essential tools in Garry's Mod; with it, you can weld (or stick) props together, rope one prop to another, give props another color or material and remove props. There are many more options that you are allowed to use, including community-made ones.

Let's say you want to rope two things. Here's how to do it!
*Using the rope tool*

1. Select your tool. Open your spawn menu by holding down Q and click on the tool you want to use. Here, we'll be using the Winch tool.

2. Configure your tool. Most tools come with one or more settings; you can set these up however you like! It's worth noting that you can type a number into the slider boxes.

3. Aim at the first prop and left-click!

4. Aim at the second prop and left-click!

5. Watch your mastery of roping things together now, and admire the work you put into it!

A few quick notes before continuing: (according to the GMod Wiki as of 19/04/23)
- Not all tools require two props, some only work on one prop, some can only be applied to the world and some require 4 points (The pulley tool, for example).
- Servers may limit the usage of props to a certain maximum or not at all. Keep this in mind when building your vehicle.
- As of now, there is no maximum number of welds, so you can weld forever.

A list of tools you can use:
- Constraints
Axis
Ball Socket
Elastic
Hydraulic
Motor
Muscle
Pulley
Rope
Slider
Weld
Pulley
Winch
- Construction
Balloon
Button
Duplicator
Dynamite
Emitter
Hover Ball
Lamps
Light
No-Collide
Physical Properties
Remover
Thruster
Wheel
- Posing
Eye Poser
Face Poser
Finger Poser
Inflator
Render
Camera
Color
Material
Paint
Trails

The context menu, as the name suggests, is a context-related menu. It allows you to edit and manipulate certain in-game objects, change your playermodel (character customization), change specific mod settings, and more. Open the context menu by simply pressing and holding C or whatever button you have assigned in the Game Options. You will notice that you no longer control the crosshair, but rather a mouse cursor. Choose the object you want to edit by pointing at it and then click right.

- Menu Bar
The top bar is always present and displays 2 options by default. The two are called "Drawing" and "NPC's".

- Drawing
The drawing menu allows you to customize what will be drawn on your screen, for example the Physgun Beam and Grab Halo.




















- NPCs
The NPCs menu allows you to alter NPC behavior, and force spawned NPCs to have specific weapon.






- Player Model
The player model widget opens a window that allows you to customize your player model.

This includes choosing your player model, it's color if the model supports that and also your Physics Gun color.







Please note that you are only selected your "preferred" model here, multiplayer servers may override your player model.

If you are using a model from an addon and server doesn't have that addon, you will appear to everybody as Dr. Kleiner, the default player model.

- Object Context
By right clicking most objects you will open a menu that contains certain options relevant to the object you chose.

For example, an NPC's context options will look like this:

And finally, one of the most important aspects for epic Garry's Mod gaming, addons!!!

Addons (or mods) add new content to your game, such as models, vehicles, weapons, NPCs, tools and more. Addons can be downloaded from the Steam Workshop through the Addons Menu, located in the Main Menu, or through the Steam Workshop website itself, which is also accessible from the Steam Client.

Addons can also be downloaded from 3rd party websites in the form of a folder, which then needs to be placed into your garrysmod/addons/ folder manually.

- Installing Addons
Installs a new addon to your game.

Open the Addons Menu.
Open one of the catagory tabs (tools, weapons).
Find the addon you want.
Hover your mouse over the addon and click the install box.

You can also go to the Garry's Mod workshop to download addons. It has a search bar, and it allows you to filter options. You can read my guide on Garry's Mod addons here.

The guide above also shows how to fix texture errors.

That is all, thank you for reading this guide and I hope it helped you!