Using PakBuild to compress your Art folder

[Manifold]

"7) Just below the "Packed Files" window select "Store Full Paths" (and only that button... don't select anything else!)."

ok, now i had paked my art-folder but it is not smaller than without paking.

 

[phungus420]

It doesn't compress the date, it makes it easier for civ to load it, speeding up load times, by alot.

 

[Manifold]

oh thanks, i did not know

 

[cfkane]

Okay, I must be missing something.

My FPK file has all of my art packed, with full file paths and all that. I put it in my Art folder, and the art I need doesn't show up.

As an experiment, I copied the FPK file and placed it in both Fictionalization/Assets and Fictionalization/Assets/Art/. The art I need still doesn't show up. So what could I be missing?

 

[phungus420]

You put the .fpk in your assets folder (not the art folder). Also you compress from the parent folder, the Art folder should be inside the folder you direct packbuild to pack.

 

[cfkane]

Okay, done that. I'm still having problems.

 

[deanej]

Are you absolutely sure you have compression level set to 0 and store full paths enabled?

 

[cfkane]

Ah, that was the problem. I didn't have the Compression level set to 0.

 

[stolenrays]

Are you absolutely sure you have compression level set to 0 and store full paths enabled?

I am having the same problem. Did everything in post one and set compression level to 0 and I get pink artwork and it crashes when it loads.

 

[phungus420]

Make sure you have "store full paths" selected.

Also ensure you are packing from the parent directory. The art folder should be inside the folder you are packing, you do not pack the art folder directly.

You also don't need to set compression to 0 (though it wol't hurt), you just need to uncheck the box marked compress; pak build is not designed to compress the art, it compiles it in a format the Civ4 engine can access faster. Packing the art is for performance.

 

[Xyth]

I've noticed that some mods have several smaller FPKs rather than one giant one of the entire art folder. I tried doing this and successfully packed my Art/Leaderheads folder - they show up fine in game. However my FPKs of Art/Terrain, Art/Units and a few others do not seem to be working. I have compression set to 0 and the paths button ticked. Any idea what could be causing this?

 

[phungus420]

The compression check boxes need to not be clicked, I don't think the rate matters, compression simply should not be on. Other then that I would ensure the file structure is correct, Civ4 is fine with loading multiple fpk files, and the names are irrelevant.

 

[deanej]

Probably a good idea to have multiple files anyways. Civ4 shipped with just one that had to be split in order for ATI cards to load the game (but for some reason ATI cards can load mods that have one big file).

 

[Xyth]

But for me they just don't work, despite being packed with the exact same settings. My Leaderheads.fpk works fine, but my Units.fpk, Terrain.fpk and Structures.fpk aren't found/read correctly and all the art in them is missing in game. All the same art works fine if packed all together into one giant Art.fpk.

Parts of my mod are modular, would this affect it? Is there something awry in the file structure of those art folders that could cause this? Has anyone experienced something similar?

 

[phungus420]

Are you sure you have "Store full paths" checked? Rebuild them and insure you are packing the parent directory, ie if your stuff is in a modules folder, you need to pack from the parent directory of the modules folder, just like you pack from the parent directory of the art folder normally.

In my experience the cause of packing not working are always:
1)Trying to compress
2)Trying to pack from the folder itself, rather from the parent folder (ie when you pack the art folder, you need to pack from the folder that holds the art folder, so that the whole art folder is packed)
3)Not selecting the "Store Full Paths" checkbox

 

[Cybah]

I've tried a max of 160mb now for each file but I will always get a runtime error crash when starting a game with a map size bigger than huge. No problems without any .fpk file. I've also tried to pak only the leaderheads (which takes most of the space) - also runtime error crash.

0 compression, I exactly followed the instructions.

 

[aw11]

Thanks for the guide! Based on that, I created a script to automatically build pak files with ps1. I hope that it can be for some use for you. Link: Autocreate Pak files