You may ask why I haven't re-written the PAC builder program. Well, the answer is that I have discovered that Alpha Team will read files directly from the program's folder (all files must be in the same folder as the .exe). This is great for modding possibilities, since if a modified version of a file exists in the 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder, the game will read it INSTEAD of the one in the .pac archives. It also means that to mod the game, no .pac builder is required (I also can't figure out how to properly rebuild a .pac file, so that's your real reason )
It can also extract ALL of the games .pac files at once. Just extract 'PACExtracter2.exe' to your 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder and run it with '-all'. Example: "PACExtracter2.exe -all" (without the quotes)
.pac File Extractor
NOTE: When using '-all', It will extract each pack file into a folder of the same name. If you modify any of these files, you'll need to move them into the same folder as the 'LEGOATeam.exe' file to make the game load them.
To use it, extract the exe to your hard drive and run it from the command line. You'll have to pass it 2 parameters: the path to an existing copy of the .pac file you want to rebuild, and the path to the folder that contains all the extracted files. The program should bundle all the extracted files back into the .pac file.
I modified the MM.PUZ file, I just added the extra team members from CREDITS.PUZ, and then changed the object types from team members to zombies. All the .PUZ files are text-based, so editing them like this is a sinch!
Wow haha I just today happened to load up Alpha Team and open up the .pac files for the heck of it. I look it up today and find you've just posted exactly what I needed! What a weird coincidence... Thanks so much!
It's not too much of stretch, that is, if everything else can be modded. My rule of thumb for game modding, if you can import it, you can usually be able to export it. I'm sure those FINs can be imported, and exporting them is the reverse of importing. Now if all the other files support modding of the levels IDK, but if they do, this sounds like an easy game to mod.
But would it be possible to take the Builder code from V1 and modify it to work like V2? V1 requiers a filelist.txt, and one was not created when I used the -all option in V2, and even if one was, it wouldn't work in V1. And while I can use command line, typing the paths to the exe, the file list, and the extracted files can at best be frustating, and if something was wrong, I have to redo the entire thing. You could also make it like JMMB's Python JAM Extractor, where you can drag the folders onto the EXE and it will create an PAC. A Builder would really help is needed in my modding research for the reason stated at the beginning. ;)
FileList.txt is created by V1 of your extractor, but not by V2. V1 of your builder has to have FileList.txt, and since there is no V2, I have to use V1 of your tools. FlisList/txt has some numeriac string at the end of each file, and I did think it was the file size expressed in bytes, it's not.
I have two modded files, A and B. I need to inster them into Pacman.pac, becuase that is where they go. When I added A and B into the vanilla, unmodded files (The Others) and recompressed it into Pacman1.pac. But A and B were not compressed, as stated by the tool itself. I edited FileList.txt to remove the numbers after the names of A and B, and tried to compress again. This time, only The Others were compressed,not A and B, and all Others listed after A and B were not compressed either.
I moved A and B to the bottom of FileList, and tried it again. This time. A was compressed, but not B. I had to extract the pac (called Pacman3.pac), edit FileList, add B into the folder, and compress again (Pacman4.pac). When I loaded the game with this pac, The Others were all active, but A and B were not.
The reason that V1 created 'FileList.txt' was because those numbers that appear after each file name are found in ech .pac file, and I have no clue what they mean. the game will also crash when trying to load a .pac file if those numbers arn't right. Do with V1 I cheated and when you extract a .pac file, it writes all those 'magic' numbers to the list file, then when you rebuild the .pac file it puts all those numbers back in their place, and the game loads without a problem.
I have discovered that Alpha Team will read files directly from the program's folder (all files must be in the same folder as the .exe). This is great for modding possibilities, since if a modified version of a file exists in the 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder, the game will read it INSTEAD of the one in the .pac archives.
Does this mean each folder corresponding the the .pac name must be present in the same folder as the exe, or all the extracted files have to be dumped in the root? I tried the latter, but the game kept crashing. Maybe I was doing it wrong...
I've successfully extracted all the .pac files and created a complete HD texture overhaul that makes hundreds of textures 8x their original resolution. Ideally I'd like to recompile the textures into their original .pac files for distribution, however upon using the PACBuilder to repack the files (successfully, I'm pretty sure, they're 400MB-500MB each now with the new textures), the game does not read them. I renamed the original Map.pac and Etc.pac files in the install directory - I have the jewel case version of the game, a 2000 release I believe - and placed my new ones in, but even so the game still somehow loads the original textures and ignores my new ones. A search on my computer for other instances of "Map.pac" files yielded nothing, so I'm completely stumped as to why the new files aren't being loaded.
Change the extension of the original PAC files to something else (for example, Map.totallynotapacfile) or just move them out of the folder entirely. The game doesn't require PAC files with the original names to be present, it'll look for any .PAC files it can find (as well as for files not in .PACs, as said in the OP). 2ff7e9595c
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