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Making the Garry's Mod Toolgun, in a easy, accurate, and afforable way.
Toolgun
Making a real-life
*
*This is purely an accurate replica and cannot be used to create weapons of mass destruction
Project Overview
I had the idea for this a few years back but honestly never really committed until recently. The goal is simple: Create a replica of the Garry's Mod Toolgun, complete with a Raspberry Pi running the UI, and interactive sounds with it as well. I've gotten pretty far with the UI side of things and thought I'd might as well document my process here.
8-21-2025
The Software
I already knew I was gonna have limits for what I could do on the software end of things. After all, the Raspberry Pi isn't exactly a hugely powerful computer. It was when I discovered that the 5th generation of the Raspberry Pi had the ability to run Android that I considered the possibility of using Unity as a basis for the UI. Of course, for a program that only has a little bit of graphics and sounds, I didn't need something insanely powerful, but my knowledge of programming is limited, so I thought it would be best to work with what I was most comfortable with. The result was this.
I designed the software end to be as modular as I can possibly make it. What that means is essensially, I can go in and screw around with the different selections, speed of the text, sounds, or whatever, and it won't be a massive pain in the dick. I have already implemented every stock Garry's Mod tool into this, and a few other messages that relate to Garry's Mod and Facepunch. The software can be found for download below. It's early, but its fine right now.
Toolgun UI (Ver 0.1)
PC Controls | Keypad Enter: Fire sound | Spacebar: Cycle Tool
No proper Android testing or controls exist. You can use the touchscreen but that is untested.
Linux Notice: The Linux build is exclusively x86_64. Use Box64 to run on ARM hardware.
NOTE: This application was designed to run EXCLUSIVELY on a 1:1 aspect ratio display! It will not scale properly for each device you put it on!
The Hardware (Planning)
As mentioned before, the main computer of the Toolgun will consist of a Raspberry Pi 5. Again I wanted to keep this as low powered as possible so I could keep this project as affordable as I could manage. The display was difficult to find, apparently it's just not easy to find 1:1 displays that were in the size I wanted. (the ones on pishop.us that I thought were good enough were out of stock) Fortunately, I found a 4" LCD Display on amazon that ran a 720x720 resolution and was perfect for this type of project. That's why the software window is like that. I wanted something to accurately represent what would be seen on the Toolgun. Unfortunately until I get these things I'm kinda just stuck, so I will be back in a few days to work on this some more.
8-27-2025
Unforeseen Consequences
So, long story short I'm not using Android like I had initally wanted to. Yeah so, the display I ordered only has support for Linux... That certainly complicated things. What complicated things even more was that I had completely ignored the fact that the Raspberry Pi uses ARM based processors. Basically, you wouldn't be running a x86_64 Linux compile on there natively. Unity does not explicitly support compiling for ARM based Linux, so I was kinda stuck. Fortunately, there is an emulation layer for those. Box64 saved this project. It emulates Linux 64 bit programs, allowing me to run 64 bit Linux programs on an ARM based computer like the Pi 5, including Unity programs! This ended up working perfectly, and the results for that can be seen below.
NOTE: The Toolgun UI is scaled incorrectly in these videos. It will be fixed in the next compile.
Next steps
I am going to create a video showcasing my progress on YouTube that will hopefully be out soon. I have also locked in on what revolver prop I want to use for the actual prop portion of the Toolgun. I have been making steady progress and am very enthusiastic about this project, and am hoping that you all will be as well. Stay tuned!
8-29-2025
"Part 1" Video recap out now!
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