Transcript

Hello and welcome to lesson 2.1 File Directories of How to Create Texture Mods presented by MLPTF2Mods.com. If you are looking to create some mods, you first need to be familiar with where your game files are. Provided you’ve installed mods before, you are likely familiar with locating your tf folder. However, we are going to go over details regardless. Assuming that Steam and Team Fortress 2 have been installed to their default file locations, you will find it at one of the following location depending on if you are using a 32 or 64-bit operating system.

For 64-bit users, your tf folder is located at:
C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/team fortress 2/tf

For 32-bit users, your tf folder is located at:
C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/team fortress 2/tf

When you installed Steam or even Team Fortress 2, you may have chosen to install it elsewhere other than the default location. There is nothing wrong with that. If you have forgotten where you installed it to, simply open up your Steam library, locate Team Fortress 2, right click and select properties. In the window that pops up, click on the local files tab, then select to browse local files. Windows Explorer will now open up to your Team Fortress 2 folder which contains your tf folder.

Additionally, if you follow the file paths but find the folders are missing, check to make sure the files aren’t hidden. While it isn’t considered normal, sometimes people’s Steam folders get hidden.

Now that we are in the tf folder, let’s have a quick look around. Most of the folders won’t be of much concern. You can see the custom folder which will host your own creations alongside others. Going back we can see the models folder. That will come in handy when using Half-Life Model Viewer in the future. Right now, our main interest remains in our tf folder. In here are the game’s VPK files. For those not in the know, VPK files or Valve Pack Files, are uncompressed archives use to package a game’s contents. As you can see, there are groups of VPKs dedicated to textures, sounds, voice overs, and miscellaneous files. Miscellaneous features the models, material files, scripts and pretty much anything that isn’t a texture or a sound.

Before concluding this lesson, it would be a sensible idea to add your tf folder, Team Fortress 2 folder, or even your custom folder to your favourites. Just some folder that is in this area to allow for quicker access in the future.

With that bit out of the way, I will catch you in the next lesson talking about GCFScape and VPK files.