Repacking your maps

[worMatty]

Sounds about right, henke.

 

[Pocket]

Well, it's a good way to stop people from stealing your custom assets, at any rate!

 

[worMatty]

Heh, that would be useful to some people I'm sure, but the pak can still be extracted using GCFscape and unpacked using 7-Zip.

 

[Werewolf]

A question regarding Resource Lists (.res files) - Which files do I need to pack with this, if at all? Assuming everything else (textures/models/model textures/sounds) gets packed in via BspZip/PackBSP/Vide/etc.

Then do I pack the .res into the map, or into a zip with the packed .bsp file?

 

[henke37]

You don't use resource lists when you pack your content. They are for the other alternative: the server telling the clients to download non packed files individually.

 

[Werewolf]

But aren't there things that can't be packed with the map, like .nav files? Or do we pack those now?

 

[henke37]

Nav files don't need to be downloaded to the client at all, they are for the server only.

 

[Werewolf]

Nav files don't need to be downloaded to the client at all, they are for the server only.

I gave nav files as an example, but the question remains - Are there files / assets that you can't pack with the map, or other things you might need to use a .res file for? Are .res files completely unneeded now?

 

[henke37]

I suppose you can use res files if you have custom assets that are shared for multiple maps and don't want clients to download duplicate copies.

 

[Werewolf]

OK. So pack everything.

 

[ics]

If you ever upload to workshop, pack everything into the bsp. Only thing to display that requires having external files in .res are the map images shown in graphical server search but nobody really use/makes those files anyway.

On a side note, it's quite amazing how small space repacking can pack a map into. Map filesize of 49,6MB went down to 9,63MB.

 

[Cynder loves Portal]

This could help also... https://sites.google.com/site/softdevdy/software/bspzipgui

 

[seth]

This could help also... https://sites.google.com/site/softdevdy/software/bspzipgui

That doesn't repack. That's just a GUI for Valve's bspzip, the native asset packer of Hammer.

 

[Vel0city]

I get the confusion though since the 2 different processes are basically named the same, minus the re in front of packing.

It's more like packing vs compressing.

 

[Cynder loves Portal]

I can't get the bzip to work. Some help plz

 

[seth]

I can't get the bzip to work. Some help plz

Are you trying to pack your custom assets or repack the map? As we've said, you can't repack with the bspzip GUI. If you're trying to pack your map, I would recommend CompilePal or VIDE. There are tutorials here on TF2M for using both these tools.

 

[Cynder loves Portal]

I have used VIDE but some users are Bitchin' about the file size!

 

[Cynder loves Portal]

The bsp file of my map contains all the assets my map requires!

 

[Vel0city]

The bsp file of my map contains all the assets my map requires!

You're confusing packing with repacking (no worries, I've seen a lot of people confuse the two as they're named almost identically but do two very different things).

Packing is when you put in your custom assets in the map. Repacking is when you compress the bsp so the file size of the bsp decreases. This thread is about repacking, not packing. And yes, if you have a lot of custom content packed in your map it will have a large file size. That's why repacking exists, to make that file size a whole lot smaller.

 

[tovilovan]

How long should this process take? Mine's been chugging along for about a half hour for a 60 mb file.

The ingame method worked!