I have put together a Mac OS X extraction utility for the Assets archives installed with Civ4. Macapaka may be of interest to mod makers who don't have access to a Windows system to run the PakBuild utility provided by Firaxis. It only does file extraction, and will not rebuild .fpk files, but that should be enough to allow modders to get at the original Art content installed in Civ4. Download version 1.2.1 here, and please let me know if it works for you. There's a help file in the disk image, and that is also the built-in Help information, but it should be pretty straightforward to use. Version 1.3.5 with added Packing capability is linked BELOW. The built-in Help file gives extra information on how to use the new feature. Version 2.0.0 handles Civ5 .fpk files and is linked BELOW. [UPDATED: May 2, 2008] Version 1.1.0 released at the above link. Now compatible with Tiger, and tested on PowerPC G4. [UPDATED: Aug 11, 2008] Version 1.1.1 released at the above link to fix a byte order bug on PowerPC Macs. [UPDATED: Jan 23, 2010] Version 1.2.1 released at the above link to handle very large .fpk files. [UPDATED: May 31, 2010] Version 1.3.1 released. Experimental version with added FPK file creation. [UPDATED: June 15, 2010] Version 1.3.5 released here. Bugs fixed, performance improved [UPDATED: November 26, 2010] Version 2.0.0 released here. Civ5 .fpk formal supported.
Thx for the feedback. Was it any use to you? Note that it will probably not run in Panther or earlier versions of OS X, as there are some items in the user interface that were not introduced until Tiger. If this is a problem for anyone. please let me know.
Alan, just noticed this. This is amazing. Easy to use and works perfectly for me, even on my MacBook. Thanks very much.
I think somehow I corrupted my art assets files in an earlier attempt to unpak them. Could anyone post a copy of their files so that I could use them?
On the DVD there's a folder called Civilization IV. That's the one you copy to your hard drive when you install Civ4. Inside that folder is a folder called Assets. Inside Assets are four files called: Assets0.fpk Assets1.fpk Assets2.fpk Assets3.fpk Here is a screenshot of my DVD contents ...
You should see a window with 'Art' in it, with a disclosure triangle to the left. Click the triangle to display the contents of the Art folder. If you don't see the window then there must be some incompatibility. What version of Mac OS are you running, and what Mac hardware?
Erm! The following is Paragraph 3 of the "Running Macapaka" section of the Readme/Help info: I'm not sure how I can make that any clearer.
I feel so stupid... After deciding to try adding a new unit I looked at the files in the art folder and there seems to be numerous missing files. I did, well attempted, to unpak all of the art asset files. Maybe there is some incompatability issues as I am running An intel imac on running tiger.
What do you mean by "attempted to unpak"? Did the extractor fail? Which assets files do you think are missing? The assetsX.fpk files only contain a basic set of art assets. There are some extra units in Civ4/Assets/Art/Units/ and Civ4/Warlords/Assets/Art/Units/.
It must have because there are only some of the art files under the civ4 Art folder and the warlords art folder.