Zoner's Half-Life tools (ZHLT) 3 documentation

This is the official documentation reference for Zoner's Half-Life tools (ZHLT).

This version of Zoner's Half-Life compile tools offer many improvements over the original map compiling tools for Half-Life, such as better lighting quality, faster vis times, switchable texture based lighting, support for brush entities casting shadows, removal of "sticky" edges, support for 64-bit processors, and much more.

ZHLT 3.4 was released on 24^th February 2006 (what's new in this version?).

• Download ZHLT (32-bit and 64-bit)
• What the compile tools do
• Command reference
• Entity changes
• Special textures
• Using the texture wad configuration file (wad.cfg)
• Common mapping problems & compile errors
• Recommended settings for final compiles
• Version history
• Credits
• Other software useful for mapping

This release of ZHLT fixes the serious problems in XP-Cagey's final p15.5 version version of the tools (these included a very slow RAD, incorrectly-cast entity shadows, and overbright light_environment), and builds on this release adding new functionality and improved performance.

These compile tools are derived from XP-Cagey's p15.5 source, which were derived from Merls custom build 1.7 (also known as MHLT). This was in turn derived from Zoner's Half-Life tools build 2.5.3.

The latest version of the tools is currently being maintained by amckern, who has also written improved versions of the Source compile tools. Please visit his ZHLT/CST site to download ZHLT 3 or CST.

This website is maintained by Ian Macfarlane.