Hammer 5 Tools

The ultimate toolkit for Counter-Strike 2 level designers and modders.

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Welcome to Hammer 5 Tools. This toolkit is designed to bridge the gaps and streamline the level design workflow in Counter-Strike 2.

Whether it's managing sound events, working with Smart Props, or compiling projects, the toolkit provides the necessary solutions.

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SmartProp Editor

Editing .vsmart files manually is no longer necessary. The editor provides a visual way to manage position, rotation, and scaling in real-time. It is fully compatible with Valve's formats and includes presets to help build complex scenes efficiently.

SoundEvent Editor

Managing sounds is simplified. Explore, preview, and configure .vsnd files directly. The tool modifies the soundevents_addon.vsndevts file safely, allowing focus on the atmosphere rather than the syntax.

Map Builder

A streamlined interface for the compilation process. Whether it's a quick preview or a final bake with high-quality lighting, you can monitor your system's performance (CPU/RAM/GPU) in real-time while it works.

Cleanup Tool

Is your addon folder getting messy? This tool scans your .vmap and sweeps away unused assets, keeping your project lean and professional.

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For Developers

Want to contribute or build your own version? Here's the lowdown on the project structure.

Project Architecture

The app is modular. Each editor lives in its own folder under Hammer5ToolsGUI/gui/ and can run standalone if you point it to the right paths. Hammer5ToolsGUI/gui/main.py is the entry point that brings everything together.

• Hammer5ToolsGUI/: PySide6 application, editors, widgets, styles, and resources.
• Hammer5ToolsCore/: one C# project, one NativeAOT native DLL — Source 2 parsing, porting, and Unreal bridge logic.
• Hammer5ToolsLauncher/: Native startup, IPC, and GUI supervision.
• Hammer5ToolsGUI/gui/forms/: Minor dialogs and UI helpers.
• Hammer5ToolsCore/external/: External libraries and .NET resources.
• Hammer5ToolsGUI/gui/common.py: Shared logic and utility functions.

Getting Started

1. Environment: Requires Python 3.11+. Install dependencies via pip install -r requirements.txt.
2. Running: Launch Hammer5ToolsGUI/gui/main.py. Ensure your working directory is set to the project root.
3. Building: A custom makefile.py handles the build process:

   # Build a stable release
   python makefile.py --build-all --stable
   
   # Build a development version
   python makefile.py --build-all --dev
   

Distribution & Updates

The project utilizes Velopack for delta-based updates. The GitHub Actions pipeline handles packaging automatically whenever a new tag (e.g., v5.0.0) is pushed to the repository.

CLI and agent automation

The existing Hammer5ToolsGUI.exe also hosts headless CLI and MCP stdio modes. See MCP_SETUP.md for source-build commands, agent configuration, and the currently implemented read-only tools.

Third-Party Libraries & Dependencies

Hammer 5 Tools builds upon several open-source libraries, tools, and frameworks:

• PySide6: Official Python bindings for Qt 6, serving as the UI framework for the application.
• PyOpenGL & PyQtGraph: 3D viewport rendering for models and real-time hardware performance telemetry visualization.
• Velopack: Installer and dynamic auto-update framework for desktop applications.
• keyvalues3: Python library for reading and writing Valve's KeyValues3 (KV3) format.
• SkiaSharp: Cross-platform 2D graphics API for asset texture rendering and image processing.
• ValveResourceFormat (VRF / Source2Viewer): C# library for parsing, decompiling, and inspecting Valve Source 2 resources, VPK archives (ValvePak), and KeyValues formats (ValveKeyValue).
• CUE4Parse: C# parser library for Unreal Engine packages.
• Datamodel.NET: C# library for reading and writing Valve DMX (Datamodel) asset files.

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