Bz2, maps, and materials, oh my

[GrimGriz]

When I get a map, since I'm using the redirect, I usually slap it in a bz2 and send it to the redirect. Today I got a fancy-pants one that came all foldered up in a .rar. It had a separate maps folder and materials folder, with the .res and .bsp in the maps, and the vmt and something else in materials.

So, I manually unzipped and ftp'd each portion to the server, but I'm wondering when I upload the bz2 to the redirect, should I include everything or just the bsp? If I include the materials, should they be in in a materials folder inside the bz2?

 

[Sgt Frag]

Probably best to let that author know they should pakrat it.

Other than that I'm not sure. Probably leave everything bzipped in it's current structure.

The only thing I have come across that I can't get packed is the quickview thumbnail. I think those might have to be in their own folder (materials/vgui/maps)

 

[Icarus]

:may have been mine:

The non-bsp files are not mandatory. But they are required to upload Map List Thumbs to clients. Packing them into the .bsp causes them to not work. They must be kept separate.

Although, I am not sure whether bzipping everything together works or not (untested)

The thumbs themselves are of an insignificant size. Compressing them wouldn't change much anyways.

 

[flubber]

I usually upload everything even if not usefull to the mirror, with source engine you'll never know, what's sure is that the client never dl from the server if a miror has been set up even if th file missing from the miror.

 

[GrimGriz]

The non-bsp files are not mandatory. But they are required to upload Map List Thumbs to clients. Packing them into the .bsp causes them to not work. They must be kept separate.

I'm surprised, since you can pakrat the custom objectives into the bsp and it seems to work out well. Can you have more than the bsp in the bz2?

 

[Nineaxis]

The problem with quick list thumbnails is that content in pakked BSP's load at map runtime- while the quicklist is from the game menu. So quick list thumbnails need to be downloaded separately as if non-map related textures.

 

[GrimGriz]

What's up with the quicklist thumbnails being re-downloaded every time you play the map, even on the same server?

 

[TotalMark]

I try to pack everything into the bsp, so downloading is much easier.

Some of the newer stuff though won't pakrat, (Map List thumbs info, particles, etc.) so I don't use those right now.