Garry's Mod

Garry's Mod, or GMod for short, is a "sandbox" mod for the first-person shooter computer game Half-Life 2. It allows the player to manipulate objects and experiment with the physics, often with interesting results thanks to the Source engine's physics engine. The construction of complex machines within the game could be said to be a contemporary spin on the Rube Goldberg machine principle.

The current (and final) version of Garry's Mod is version 10, which still receives regular updates via Steam. An older, unsupported version, 9.0.4, is available as a free download at download.com among other places. Version 10, now known simply as Garry's Mod, has been available for purchase on Steam since November 29, 2006 for $9.95 (excl. tax.) It requires at least one Source engine game in the user's account to play, and therefore is offered in a reduced-price bundle with Counter-Strike: Source for those who do not meet that criteria.

Overview
Garry's Mod is a game modification, created by Garry Newman, and a successor to JBMod the original sandbox Half-Life 2 modification. While GMod does not possess any actual gameplay value in a traditional sense, it enables the player to freely manipulate all of the objects and features of the Source engine except for the background features. This has allowed an extensive community to build up and create mods and mini-games within GMod. GMod can be used as a map editing tool that interfaces with Valve Software's proprietary editor Hammer to add furniture and small items through its first person interface, letting users graphically interact with their map. GMod 9 is the last free version of the modification, and was last updated to version 9.0.4 on the 27th of November 2005. Garry's Mod (previously known as GMod 10), the first commercial iteration of the mod, has been released through Valve Software's game management platform Steam, at a cost of $9.95 USD. It was released on 29th November 2006.

Garry's Mod
The newest version of Garry's Mod was released on Steam, Valve's content delivery system, on November 29, 2006. Most players familiar with Garry's Mod previous to its commercial release refer to it as Garry's Mod 10. The game costs $9.95 (excl. tax,) however it requires a Source engine game to run. Garry's Mod is available as a bundle with Counter-Strike: Source for $24.95 USD. Essentially, almost all functionality within Garry's Mod (tools, constraints, shaders, menus, etc.) is powered by Lua and therefore can be customized or created by the player.

New features and changes include:


 * More versatile camera tool.
 * Appearance of thrusters can be altered, right down to the effects.
 * Player models now visible in vehicles.
 * Color-wheel within bloom and colour-gun toolmodes.
 * The Physics Gun is able to move any entity. (Except for other players and the map itself)
 * Improved client-server interaction.
 * Reworked motion-blur.
 * Hydraulic tool-gun.
 * Motor tool-gun: allows props to automatically rotate. Controllable with the number-pad.
 * Winch Constraint tool-gun: a constraint that allows control of a length of rope at set speeds with the number-pad.
 * Keep upright tool-gun
 * Hoverball tool-gun: attaches hovering balls to objects and hovers them at set heights. They will allow players to make more complex flying machines as well as aid in steering such objects.
 * A Morphing Effect that allows the player's view to be distorted, in a watermarked position on the screen, this is still beta.
 * A higher-quality Depth of field effect with a more intuitive interface. Can select the focal point by clicking at the point.
 * The new spawn menu has a configurable system of categories and filters from a base list of all of the resources available and will also automatically generate icons for spawnable items, eliminating both the need to produce icons for every object in the world and keep up with new releases, and concerns about not covering third-party creations.
 * From the videos and screenshots, it appears that the connections are now dynamic.

According to The Steam Review, Valve has given Garry Newman, in exchange for 50% of the profits from Garry's Mod, the full Source engine source code to overcome the limitations of the free Source SDK.

GMod 9
Several basic 'gamemodes' are included with the mod, with fairly self-explanatory names like "Build to the Top" and "Melon-racing". Lua Scripting has been implemented into the mod, which allows players to create their own gamemodes and weapons (SWEPs - Scripted WEaPons) by the Garry's Mod community.

Stock tools
Manipulates, rotates and freezes objects in mid-air, everything from ragdolls (used to create comics and ragdoll poses, with interesting results) to props. It is a slight edit of an original unused script in Half-Life 2's code. A new gun introduced in Garry's Mod that replaced the crossbow in earlier versions of the mod. The Tool Gun allows the player to use the many tools in the game such as; Rope tool, Weld tool, Balloon tool and the Thruster tool.
 * Physics Gun
 * Tool Gun
 * Face Poser
 * Gives the player the ability to adjust the faces of ragdolls, and was first seen in Version 6a.


 * Paint Gun
 * A tool-gun which gives the player the ability to paint decals such as blood, bird excrement, beer splash, alien blood and other substances onto different surfaces such as walls, objects and ragdolls.


 * Spawn Menu
 * The player can spawn items into the map by using the spawn menu (opened by pressing and holding the Q key). This menu gives the player access to most physical objects, such as rocks or furniture, and character ragdolls, such as enemies and characters.


 * Camera Tool
 * Hides the weapon and HUD, and takes a screenshot when the player clicks the mouse, making screenshots easier to take.


 * Post-processing effects
 * There are a number of post-processing effects that can be utilised in Garry's Mod. Some examples are depth of field - a blur effect that simulates how a camera/eye lens focuses on different distances. Bloom: an effect which causes light to spread; or 'bloom' if you will, this effect is an important component of HDR rendering. Not all graphics cards support these features.


 * Rope Tool
 * Allows the player to make a rope between two physics such as; Walls, Ragdolls, NPC's and Props. The player can set how wide the rope should be.


 * Weld Tool
 * Allows the player to weld two objects together or to weld an object to a wall or so. Also it is called the weld tool, all it does is attach one object to another so they move with each other.


 * Pulley tool
 * The pulley tools takes four steps. The first step is selecting the object to be attached to one end of the pulley. The second and third shots are anchors for the constraint, where the rope must go through. (The pulleys) The last step is selecting the other end of the constraint.


 * Axis tool
 * The axis tool creates a point on which an object will rotate.


 * Ball socket tool
 * The Ball Socket tool lives up to its name: It creates ball-and-socket joints on which an object can pivot and rotate in any direction.


 * Balloon Gun
 * Attaches floating balloons to all kinds of objects. The upward force of a balloon can be altered. The balloons themselves used to be watermelons that had been altered to fall upwards, i.e. as if they were filled with helium. As of GMod 9, the watermelons have shiny, flat colour textures to appear as balloons, as opposed to previous versions where they were merely watermelons with different colors. in Garry's Mod 10, a proper balloon model will be used instead of re-textured and recoloured watermelons.


 * Thruster Tool
 * Attaches thrusters that can be controlled by the number-pad. They are essential in the function of flying contraptions and applications where land vehicles are simply not efficient with wheels.


 * Wheel Gun
 * Attaches rotating wheels to anything. Once applied, the player can control the direction and speed of the wheels. There are many different types of wheels, ranging from actual car tires to saw-blades and barrels.


 * Colour Gun
 * Allows players to change the colors of objects using RGB sliders.


 * Material Gun
 * Changes the textures of objects. Can be used in conjunction with the Colour Gun.


 * Magnet Tool
 * Converts ordinary objects, regardless of their materials, into magnets which attach to any object or ragdoll. This tool also has a few interesting side effects, such as making breakable props unbreakable, removing all constraints from a prop and unfreezing frozen props when used. The magnetism can be altered via a slider. Note that the magnet does not attract objects.


 * Dynamite Tool
 * Creates infinitely reusable remote explosives that can be set off with a button on the keyboard. These have many uses including cannons and traps.



Gmod 9 Mods
There are countless Lua scripted modifications for Garry's mod. These can be ranging from simple mods with increased life or speed, to incredibly complex gamemodes.

There are basic categories

Roleplay (RP)
You have money, and have tools which enable you to sell items on the map, or to interact with other players.

Newer RP gamemodes have inventories and highly advanced capabilities including Item Combining and Stock Markets.

Influence on popular culture


GMod has also become a tool for users to create music videos, comics and other forms of Machinima. For example the web-comic Concerned, which parodied Half-Life 2, was made using GMod.

It is currently the most popular third party modification for Half-Life 2 with online player counts beating popular Half-Life mods such as The Specialists and Sven Co-op. Many different "Mini Mods" have been made by users. An example is "Wooden Wars", where teams make vehicles or buildings out of wood, and then add weapons made up of anything from gas canisters with thrusters on, to shells launched from "home made" cannons. They then destroy the other team's work.

Community
More so than other games, Garry's Mod has a thriving internet community based around the game. This mainly consists of programmers who code new weapons, levels, tools for the game and other such items. Many GMod related sites (such as the Facepunch Studios forums) have a large area where map programmers can discuss their plans for levels, and other sites such as garrysmod.org serve as a download portal for custom content for the game.

Awards
Garry's Mod 9 has won three Mod of the Year awards:
 * 1) GameSpy: PC Mod of the Year 2005 (December 2005)
 * 2) PCGamer US - Best Mod 2005 (January 2006)
 * 3) ModDB: Mod of the Year! (January 2006)

Movie making
Many users on Garry's forums, Facepunch Studios, have used Garry's Mod to create movies.

There is also an upcoming movie, around 30-40 minutes long, named War of the Servers. However, instead of Garry's Mod 10, it will be made in Garry's Mod 9.