Modding Terminology

This is a list of modding terms that are used to describe some functions of game modding disciplines. This page exists if any reader is confused about some terms used within some of the articles. Included is basic terminology as well as terms specific to the Source engine and even just this wiki.

Unit

A unit is the standard measurement in Source. 16 units is equivalent to 1 foot in Half-Life2 and it's Episodes (as well as most other VALVe games). Most variables from scripts that involve measurement is counted in units.

X, Y, & Z axises

These are used the same way as the basic axis set used on any 2D or 3D graph. The exception in Source is that the Z axis accounts for upwards/downwards while the Y axis accounts for forwards/backwards. It is important to remember this while working with coordinates.

Convar

This is a term that is short for "console variable".

Keyvalue

A keyvalue is any value / variable in a script file (located in the scripts folder). Keyvalues also represent the properties of an entity.

Flag

A Flag is a boolean value that is stored in an integer variable. The values are added together to represent a storage of multiple true booleans within one value.

PVS

A entities PVS is it's Potentially Visible Set. This is commonly within the same visleaf that the entity is in and this includes it's view cone which accounts for what the entity can see.

Mini-Mod

On this wiki mini-mod will refer to any mod that is made using SMOD as it's base. These are commonly just the regular downloadable SMOD mod with heavily edited files within it's structure. Any mod that uses any sort of SMOD .dll is a mini-mod of SMOD.

(DBDB: Whole thing needs cleaned up a little, and split.)

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