| What Am I Downloading, Here? |
AN FGD is an entity definition file. The FGD currently loaded in your map editor contains information about what entities are valid to create, what properties they have, and what they should look like in the editor. Obviously it has a lot of power.
Having a good FGD is important for a number of reasons; notably, for instance, without a properly-written FGD, you'd have to memorize the classnames and keys of every entity you want to create. No more selecting from a list of entities and properties, and certainly no more documentations!
An FGD also helps a mapper to know the extent of what he can create. There is no grapefruit launcher in HL2DM, but what if a mapper saw weapon_grapefruit in the entity list? It'd be misleading. What if npc_alyx had a "Spawn Nude" property according to the FGD, though in-game she is not capable of it? That would be downright cruel.
Unfortunately, the FGDs popularized by Valve--and, by definition, mod FGDs based on them--contain innumerable such errors. Did you know that you can put ammo in your CS:S gun entities quickly and easily? How about that almost every visible entity can be made partially transparent and forced to a certain minimum brightness?
The goal of writing custom FGDs is to ensure that what appears in the editor exactly matches what is valid in the game. If something does not work in-game, it should not claim to work by appearing in Hammer--and likewise for things that do work (where they aren't deprecated, but this is a point of debate).
The log of changes made to these FGDs is really quite long and droning--view it on a separate page here.
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| Installation Instructions |
1. Download and unzip one of the above files to your Steam\SteamApps\account\sourcesdk\bin folder.
2. Open Hammer, then go to Tools --> Options.
3. Use the first drop-down menu to choose the game that corosponds to the fgd you downloaded, then highlight the current fgd listed in the Game Data Files box.
4. Click the "Remove" button next the Game Data Files box to remove the old fgd.
5. Click the "Add" button next to the Game Data Files box and browse to the location of the FGD you just downloaded.
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