Crowbar vs Project IGI Game Converter

Crowbar is a free Windows tool for modding GoldSource and Source Engine games. It can decompile, compile, and view models, as well as unpack, inspect, and search Valve VPK, Garry's Mod GMA, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines VPK, Tactical Intervention FPX, and Fairy Tale Busters APK packages. It can also pack folders into Valve VPK and Garry's Mod GMA files. Decompilation can recreate QC, mesh, animation, and procedural-bone files, while batch workflows can process a selected folder and its subfolders. Crowbar supports downloading Workshop items and publishing them for several games. The maker says Windows XP or later and .NET Framework 4 are required. Compiling models needs the game's authoring tools or SDK and its studiomdl.exe; viewing models needs authoring tools or an SDK and hlmv.exe. The latest release shown is version 0.74, dated February 2023. Help materials include guides, tutorials, reference resources, Discord, and Steam discussions.

Project IGI Game Converter is a standalone tool for inspecting and converting Project IGI 1 files, intended for modders and researchers working with game assets. It handles proprietary textures, meshes, scripts, archives, terrain, fonts, animations, audio, AI graphs, and lightmaps, with workflows for editing assets and putting them back into the game. Its GUI offers a searchable file tree, 3D model and 2D texture viewers, a texture editor, script and hex inspectors, and conversion actions. It can render MEF and OBJ models, export MEF to OBJ, convert TEX, SPR, and PIC images, and save texture edits in native formats. It also converts between QVM bytecode and QSC source and exports DAT mappings to JSON or binary packages. The CLI supports scripted builds, batch work, and recursive folder processing. Available on Windows and macOS, it is free under an MIT license. The Windows release retains the GUI; the macOS release is an Apple Silicon CLI build for macOS 12.0 or later. Applying model textures in the GUI requires choosing the active level folder in Settings.