L4D2, Custom GUI, and how (pak01_dir.vpk)+(Notebook++) = I broke my L4D.

So Valve has announced that Left 4 Dead 2 (Official Valve Left 4 Dead 2 Announcement) will be arriving in November and I’m sure we are all pretty excited. The trailer dropped at E3 yesterday and you can watch it in low-res here or in HD here. From what I can tell it’s appears to be much brighter and a lot more colorful than the first, like TF2 meets L4D style, that I think will appeal to a much wider audience. We also, finally, get to see the  implementation of real melee weapons, something I myself have been wanting since i first played L4d. Last, but not least, is the updated AI Director. From what I understand, it can now affect weather, world objects, and pathways, adding a new dimension to it’s variety and replay index. Stay tuned for more info as it comes.

In the meantime, I have been hard at work dismantling L4D and figuring out how to change more stuff. I have been working on a couple GUI’s and Loading Screen (not Movie Poster) replacements. Here’s an example of my Static GUI…

…which I use while doing dev work. A portion of music from the 28 Days Later soundtrack is used for background music, but, as I have learned, the Source engine treats that gamestartup1.mp3 like a red headed step child. I have also made a GUI with a looping video for the background. The video is an edit of Dead Set footage put to the song Train to Miami by Steel Pole Bath Tub, most of you will know it as “the song from the L4D commercial”. They should both be available for download soon, pending final adjustments.

So ya…I have been learning how to install new skins and textures and other stuff to Left 4 Dead and, per the usual, I decided to go the hard route and learn all about editing my pak01_dir.vpk. After dicking around with XVI32(hex editor) for a while my Windows Vista decided that it no longer wanted to associate .vpk files with XVI32 so I switched to Notepad++. Everything seemed fine until I loaded up L4D and it crashed, and crashed, and crashed again. So I replaced my custom pak01_dir with an unedited one and it was still broken. After talking with a friend for a while he advised me to stay away from Notepad++ (as it can “cause issues”) and stick with XVI32. So I fixed up L4D using the Steam repair, cleaned out all my custom content from my L4D directory, BACKED UP ALL MY L4D FILES, and used XVI32 to edit the pak01_dir and bam…now it’s all good. Now the point/moral of this story is…

BACK UP ALL YOUR FUCKING FILES BEFORE YOU START EDITING THEM!!!!!

<3 Torpedo Vegas