Packing your campaign in a vpk file
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:54 am
Valve has made a very interesting thing that allows you to pack all of your custom campaign files into one executable with vpk extension.
All people have to do is download the vpk, double click on it and 10 seconds later, the campaign can be selected in the lobby.
This vpk contains truly everything:
- Bsp+nav files
- Unless you pakratted these, it also has the custom materials, sounds and models
- soundscape file
- campaign poster
- map thumbnails you see in the lobby
- mission.txt file. This file makes sure the maps are played in the correct order. It also tells the lobby what thumbnail is linked with what map and how each map is named so you see the correct name in the "Chapter" thing in the lobby
- addoninfo.txt file: tells the game where to find the campaign poster, who to display as author, the name of the campaign and even a link so that people automatically download the vpk if they don't have it installed yet.
This is really a great thing. I tested my map with a friend this weekend and he said it was easy as fuck to install. My map with all it's custom content is now packed in one .vpk of 50meg. Zipped it's 32meg. And it's just one click to install
I'm really glad Valve made it this user friendly.
Nipper, if you want, I'll take care of all these extra txt files that are needed for our campaign.
All people have to do is download the vpk, double click on it and 10 seconds later, the campaign can be selected in the lobby.
This vpk contains truly everything:
- Bsp+nav files
- Unless you pakratted these, it also has the custom materials, sounds and models
- soundscape file
- campaign poster
- map thumbnails you see in the lobby
- mission.txt file. This file makes sure the maps are played in the correct order. It also tells the lobby what thumbnail is linked with what map and how each map is named so you see the correct name in the "Chapter" thing in the lobby
- addoninfo.txt file: tells the game where to find the campaign poster, who to display as author, the name of the campaign and even a link so that people automatically download the vpk if they don't have it installed yet.
This is really a great thing. I tested my map with a friend this weekend and he said it was easy as fuck to install. My map with all it's custom content is now packed in one .vpk of 50meg. Zipped it's 32meg. And it's just one click to install
I'm really glad Valve made it this user friendly.
Nipper, if you want, I'll take care of all these extra txt files that are needed for our campaign.
