How to pack your Mission

Note

This article is WIP.

This article should describe how to pack TDM missions for release, distinguishing between missions using just vanilla (unmodified official) mod resources and those adding custom content like textures, def files and/or modifying original TDM files.

What you should do in any case

Regardless of whether your mission is using custom resources or not, you should always perform a full recompile of your map. Delete the .proc, .cm and .aas* files and run a dmap command from TDM console. Make sure the dates of these files are making sense and no old files are floating around in your maps/ folder.

Missions basing on vanilla TDM

If your mission is just using TDM resources (no scripts, no custom textures, no additional models, no new def files), the packaging process is rather easy. This guide assumes your mission is called outpost, so you're starting with something like this in your maps folder:

maps/outpost.map
maps/outpost.proc
maps/outpost.cm
maps/outpost.aas32

First step is to pack these files into your PK4 file, which can be done with any program capable of handling ZIP files (PK4s are just renamed ZIPs), like 7-zip. Create a new maps/ folder somewhere on your hard drive and copy the above files into this folder. Let's suppose this is c:\temp\outpost\maps:

C:\temp\outpost\maps\outpost.map
C:\temp\outpost\maps\outpost.proc
C:\temp\outpost\maps\outpost.cm
C:\temp\outpost\maps\outpost.aas32

Navigate to the c:\temp\outpost folder and right-click the maps/ folder. Depending on your compression program you should find an option in the context menu to add the maps/ folder to some archive. Name or rename that archive to outpost.zip and check the contents: the maps/ folder should be right at the "top-level" of that archive (no outpost/ folder in that ZIP!).

Go ahead and rename that zip file to pk4. To make the package complete, you'll need to add two more files: startingmap.txt and darkmod.txt. Use your text editor to create these two files and place them next to the outpost.pk4 file. Their content looks similar to this:

darkmod.txt

The darkmod.txt file describes your mission in the TDM's mission selection dialog:

Title: The Outpost
Description: Break into a builder outpost to retrieve a gold ingot.
Author: angua & greebo

The description text mustn't be too long, be sure to check the length of the texts when testing the package in the mission installation dialog.

startingmap.txt

This file holds the name of the first mission to load when the player selects "Start Mission". This is interesting for multi-map campaigns, but for a single-map mission just put the name of your map file in here: outpost.map.

Together with the PK4 file, the two text files make the package complete. Put these three files into your darkmod/fms folder and test it by selecting "New Mission".

Missions with Custom Content

TODO

Old Info

An easy way to release maps is to provide a PK4 archive, which can easily be dropped into the mod folder.

All your unique assets should be packed into an archive with the same directory structure as the main mod (ie, your map file should be in the "[archive name]/maps/" folder, materials go in "[archive name]/materials/" etc). The archive must be a zip. RARs will not work. (You can of course use WinRAR or other RAR archive programs to create an actual ZIP file, just check the correct option - the most important thing is that the file is in ZIP format).

You can name the archive whatever you want. Once it is packed you just rename the zip extension to pk4. So your archive will look like my_map_v001.pk4. The result can be dropped either in the darkmod directory or in the base folder of your Doom 3 installation.

Make sure that the packed folders are not contained within a top folder, otherwise Doom3 will not be able to find anything in it. It has to look like this:

maps/
models/
textures/
xdata/

Please check this by extracting your PK4/ZIP into another location and see if the maps/ folder gets created in the correct position.

Overriding Default Dark Mod Content

Files that exist outside of PK4s take precedence over the packed files. So, placing a tdm_player_thief.def file into your PK4 won't do anything, because the file in the "real" filesystem will override the one within the PK4. This situation might change by the time The Dark Mod is released, but I thought this might be worth mentioning.

If you need to override default Mod content (the tdm_player_thief.def might be one of the few occasions where this might be appropriate), the files must be extracted from the PK4, possibly overwriting the vanilla Mod files. So be sure to warn your users about this, as long as no dedicated Dark Mod loader is available (which again might be obsolete by the time the Mod is released).

Other considerations

• Mission name file
• Readme
• Briefing (may be included in Readme or maybe video?)
• Requirements - essentials to be included such as 'not for sale', copyright etc. What should be in every readme. If any.
• A guide to what is recommended in a good info readme?