Auto Map Installer - MASS UNZIP CORRUPTED Q3 INSTALL

Post by **Darknyt** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:37 pm

I'm looking for a much needed utility that I have not been able to find - in UT2k3 and up, one can find a Map extractor that you can run and it will automatically install the various files of a custom map into their appropriate folder and can do so for dozens of maps at a time.

Is there something like this for Quake 3? I have several cd's of hundreds of custom maps, but it is a tremendous pain in the ass to open each map folder/zip up and drag the contents to the appropriate folder.

Here is what I'm talking about for UT2k4:
http://www.real-swedix.net/ut2004mi.html

Post by **Survivor** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:38 pm

quake only requires you to place the .pk3 for the map in the baseq3 directory. It will work after that

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:39 pm

maybe someone can stir up a .bat which will take some of the pain away. it just won't be me.

Post by **R00k** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:44 pm

Survivor wrote:quake only requires you to place the .pk3 for the map in the baseq3 directory. It will work after that

:icon14:

No work involved, just copy the pk3's directly from the cd to the baseq3 directory and you're done. One of the many advantages of Q3 over Unreal.

Post by **Darknyt** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:00 pm

R00k wrote:
Survivor wrote:quake only requires you to place the .pk3 for the map in the baseq3 directory. It will work after that
:icon14:

No work involved, just copy the pk3's directly from the cd to the baseq3 directory and you're done. One of the many advantages of Q3 over Unreal.

Thanks for the many quick replies, however - there is a TON of work involved - I'm not sure any of you read my first post completely and understood it.

It is exactly this process you have suggested that is a TREMENDOUS pain in the ass for HUNDREDS of individual zips. I've got probably something close to a 1000 custom maps that I used to run on my old installation and would like to get back to using them again. I would have to sit there and individually open each one and install it manually.

Oh. my. holy. waste. of. time.

Whereas, a nice extractor would allow you just to point it to the discs, identify your baseq3 folder and bingo! - no mess, no fuss.

I just find it hard to believe this doesn't already exist, as it does for UT - I mean what do people do when the reinstall Q3 and need all their custom maps back? Sit there and do them all one by one? Ugh. How nasty!

Any hoo - :icon25: don't mean to be a sour puss, just don't like the prospect of spending a good chunk of an evening doing this manually - hence why I haven't done it yet and don't play Q3 much lately. :icon23:

Post by **R00k** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:04 pm

Oh I see. Why in the world are they all zipped up? I extract mine as soon as I download them and just delete the zip (if they're even in a zip).

Quake3 pk3 files are just winzip files with a different extension - usually it doesn't help much to zip the pk3 files up, unless you're trying to get super-high compression.

Sorry you couldn't find what you were looking for though.

But try looking in the Quake3 forum here if you haven't already.

Post by **Darknyt** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:11 pm

R00k wrote:Oh I see. Why in the world are they all zipped up? I extract mine as soon as I download them and just delete the zip (if they're even in a zip).

Quake3 pk3 files are just winzip files with a different extension - usually it doesn't help much to zip the pk3 files up, unless you're trying to get super-high compression.

Sorry you couldn't find what you were looking for though.

But try looking in the Quake3 forum here if you haven't already.

Thanks - tried the forum with no success yet. When I originally d/l them over a long period I would extract and install, but most every zip came with other stuff in it.

It wasn't compression related I'm sure, they were just all zips cuz authors included readmes, custom music, etc. I can't remember ever d/l a raw pk file - All of them came in zips - so I just saved them all in a folder and eventually burned them all to cds.

And here I am staring at hundreds of zips, and me a lazy bastard lol.

Post by **Cool Blue** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:23 pm

Have you tried highlighting all the files you wish to uncompress, then right clicking them and choosing 'Extract to...'?

Post by **Cool Blue** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:27 pm

I would like to further add, that it's irrelavent to my knowledge if the files are within a subfolder under the Baseq3 directory, as Q3 will load any .pk3s within the baseq3 dir, regardless of folder depth.

Post by **Dark Metal** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:49 pm

I'D like to add that this has been moved to T&T.

Post by **Cool Blue** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:49 pm

Okay, it's not true.

Post by **Tormentius** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:03 pm

Cool Blue wrote:Have you tried highlighting all the files you wish to uncompress, then right clicking them and choosing 'Extract to...'?

Winnar!!!1

Post by **Scourge** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:08 pm

Tormentius wrote:
Cool Blue wrote:Have you tried highlighting all the files you wish to uncompress, then right clicking them and choosing 'Extract to...'?
Winnar!!!1

And once they are all extracted, you might think about burning them that way so you don't have to go through it again.

Post by **Darknyt** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:16 am

Tormentius wrote:
Cool Blue wrote:Have you tried highlighting all the files you wish to uncompress, then right clicking them and choosing 'Extract to...'?
Winnar!!!1

Loosar!

J/K - That's not a bad idea, but then I still have to go and sort through the base folder to remove all the crap that was in the zips besides the .pk3.

And I still have to manually place custom music, etc.

But it's a better solution than doing it one by one.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:19 am

Darknyt wrote:
Tormentius wrote:
Cool Blue wrote:Have you tried highlighting all the files you wish to uncompress, then right clicking them and choosing 'Extract to...'?
Winnar!!!1
Loosar!

J/K - That's not a bad idea, but then I still have to go and sort through the base folder to remove all the crap that was in the zips besides the .pk3.

And I still have to manually place custom music, etc.

wut.

Post by **bork[e]** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:34 am

there is usually "read me" files in every custom map telling you about features the map contains, textures the person used ect...That's the pain he is speaking of.

all he has to do is unzip them all at once, sort the files by extension, and delete all .txt files though...

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:23 am

bork[e] wrote:there is usually "read me" files in every custom map telling you about features the map contains, textures the person used ect...That's the pain he is speaking of.

all he has to do is unzip them all at once, sort the files by extension, and delete all .txt files though...

yeah, i know about the readme's, i read ALL the ones i used to download cuz i was a whore like that.

my "wut" was referring to "manually placing music". as far as i knew, any custom tunes were in the .pk3, not seperate files.

Post by **Tormentius** » Wed May 04, 2005 5:06 am

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
yeah, i know about the readme's, i read ALL the ones i used to download cuz i was a whore like that.

my "wut" was referring to "manually placing music". as far as i knew, any custom tunes were in the .pk3, not seperate files.

Yeah they are. And sorting by extension as borke mentioned then deleting all text files makes this whole thing a 30 second procedure.

Post by **seremtan** » Wed May 04, 2005 10:38 am

That UT2K4 installer app looks useful, though it just serves to conceal the fact that UT2K4's file structure is annoyingly stupid.

But really, how much effort is it to simply drag and drop a .pk3 into your baseq3?

Post by **R00k** » Wed May 04, 2005 12:59 pm

You might also look for a program called ZipKiller. I used to use it a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it's still available, but it had lots of options for extracting tons of archives at once.

Post by **Darknyt** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:15 pm

R00k wrote:You might also look for a program called ZipKiller. I used to use it a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it's still available, but it had lots of options for extracting tons of archives at once.

That's a nice idea - thanks for the tip.

I tried using Cool Blue's mass unzip idea above and guess what?

IT KILLED MY Q3 INSTALLATION - lol. Not his fault of course - after the 10th time it asked to overwrite "readme.txt" I just hit "yes to all".

When I boot up all I see is the menu choices in blue text (no "Quake III Arena" title) and when I go to singleplayer - it says "No maps found".

I guess I can either do a fresh install of Q3 or hunt down the offending .pk3, hoping of course that it didn't overwrite something criitcal.

Oh well - that's what I get for being lazy, lol.

Post by **Darknyt** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:35 pm

seremtan wrote:That UT2K4 installer app looks useful, though it just serves to conceal the fact that UT2K4's file structure is annoyingly stupid.

But really, how much effort is it to simply drag and drop a .pk3 into your baseq3?

I certainly don't know much about the file structures, but I know that having the orignal Pak files in the same folder you install all the maps into is probably what allowed me to bork my installation.

UT2K4 has an entirely seperate folder for maps and I've never borked that installation downloading custom content . . .

Post by **Tormentius** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:52 pm

Darknyt wrote:
R00k wrote:You might also look for a program called ZipKiller. I used to use it a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it's still available, but it had lots of options for extracting tons of archives at once.
That's a nice idea - thanks for the tip.

I tried using Cool Blue's mass unzip idea above and guess what?

IT KILLED MY Q3 INSTALLATION - lol. Not his fault of course - after the 10th time it asked to overwrite "readme.txt" I just hit "yes to all".

:icon27:

Yeah...except that doing what he said wouldn't/couldn't have killed the installation.

Post by **Foo** » Wed May 04, 2005 5:03 pm

Unless there was a pak*.pk3 in there which overwrote the game's pak's.

Or a map with badly formed media in it.

Or a combination of 2 maps that happen not to play well together.

In summary:
Yes, it could have take out the install.
No, there isn't a utility that we know of (it seems).
Yes, one would be an excellent idea.

Post by **Darknyt** » Wed May 04, 2005 7:24 pm

Foo wrote:Unless there was a pak*.pk3 in there which overwrote the game's pak's.

Or a map with badly formed media in it.

Or a combination of 2 maps that happen not to play well together.

In summary:
Yes, it could have take out the install.
No, there isn't a utility that we know of (it seems).
Yes, one would be an excellent idea.

Yeah - I checked the original pak files and they don't seem to be modified (at least from the date in the file listing), so I'm guessing its some sort of corrupt pak or conflict.

Weeeeee!!