People have made all kinds of incredible mods for Half-Life: Alyx already, from porting levels from Half-Life 2 to allowing you to play the game without a VR headset, should you really, really want to. The good news is the scene is about to get a whole lot bigger thanks to the release of the official mod tools and Steam Workshop support.

The new tools went live today and include a full set of tools to allow level editing, modelling, animation and more. These new apps are an extensive suite of development tools that will allow some pretty powerful mods. The full list of the tools included are;

• Hammer, the latest version of the Source 2 level editor.
• Material Editor, the tool for creating and tuning materials in Source 2.
• ModelDoc, a tool for viewing, editing, and compiling models with animation, collision, and other gameplay attributes.
• AnimGraph, our animation tool used to create complicated animation setups with blends and transitions.
• Particle Editor, for making new particle effects.
• Subrect Editor, for creating smart texture sheets known as "hotspots."
• Source Filmmaker, the Source 2 cinematic renderer and animation tool.

Valve even throws a few ideas to get you started, including possibilities such as a "giant Rube Goldberg machine" or a new combat encounter featuring "a dozen Combine soldiers at once" or even a "whole new district of City 17".

The tools are in beta and will see some regular updates, however, it's time for the real fun to begin, with examples provided for all the tools to get you started on how to create maps, animate cutscenes or create your own models.

The update also added Steam Workshop support, and I'd expect a lot of cool stuff to start coming out over the next few days, so we'll be sure to keep an eye out.