VTFBuilder, a Three Layered Material (TLM) to VMT Batch Converter

Converts Three Layered Materials (TLMs) into Valve VMT/VTF textures for use in Source Engine mapping. (because RBXLX2VMF doesn't import custom RBX textures) Included:

• Roblox materials, with variants (mossy, rusty, ...)
• Roblox surfaces (studs, inlets, universal, glue) (RETRO)
• Dev surfaces (Wall, Grid)
• JSON with the 208 RBX BrickColors and 10 additionnal Dev Colors

How does it work, what do you mean by TLM (Three Layered Material)?

It's because it has 3 "layers" to make one texture, a color tint, a material and an overlay/surface.

Here is exactly how the code builds the texture:

• Load material image
• Generate tint color from JSON
• Tint material via pixel-wise multiply
• Overlay surface texture on the tinted material

Prerequisites

• Python 3
• Pillow (pip install pillow)
• External tool vtfcmd (included in bin/)

Usage

1. Download entire repo and have it in a folder

2. Run vtfbuilder.py or use python ./vtfbuilder.py in a terminal,

   • add --output-path "path/to/materials" to extract directly to your materials folder
   • add --keep-png (true/yes/1) to keep the temporary pngs
   • Example vtfbuilder.py --keep-png 1 --output-path "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\garrysmod\materials"

3. Select material(s):

   • Use smoothplastic if you just want the color, neon will make the texture "glow" ($selfillum 1, no light emission.)
   • Script lists all images in material/.
   • Type comma-separated names (without extension) or all.
   • Each selected material will be processed via ThreadPoolExecutor.
   • /!\ This means choosing to process one material at a time will be slower than selecting multiple at once

4. Select surface(s) similarly.

   • Use smooth if you want no overlay and just the tinted material.

5. Let the script do its work

6. Find results in output/rbx/....

7. Move the rbx/directory to your Source game's materials folder.