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PAC Extractor 2.0 (now with -all option)


legomoe
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I recently found a couple of bugs in my old PAC Tools, so I've gone and re-written a new version of my PAC Extractor program.

 

You may ask why I haven't re-written the PAC builder program. Well, the answer is that I have discovered that Alpha Team will read files directly from the program's folder (all files must be in the same folder as the .exe). This is great for modding possibilities, since if a modified version of a file exists in the 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder, the game will read it INSTEAD of the one in the .pac archives. It also means that to mod the game, no .pac builder is required (I also can't figure out how to properly rebuild a .pac file, so that's your real reason ;) )

 

Anyway, here's a link to the file: https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r207/

 

It can also extract ALL of the games .pac files at once. Just extract 'PACExtracter2.exe' to your 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder and run it with '-all'. Example: "PACExtracter2.exe -all" (without the quotes)

 

NOTE: When using '-all', It will extract each pack file into a folder of the same name. If you modify any of these files, you'll need to move them into the same folder as the 'LEGOATeam.exe' file to make the game load them.

 

EDIT: As requested by le717, here is a utility for rebuilding .pac archives.

https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r208/

 

To use it, extract the exe to your hard drive and run it from the command line. You'll have to pass it 2 parameters: the path to an existing copy of the .pac file you want to rebuild, and the path to the folder that contains all the extracted files. The program should bundle all the extracted files back into the .pac file.

 

NOTE: If the program fails for some reason, it might corrupt the .pac file it's working with, so make sure to BACK UP your .pac files before trying to rebuild them.

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brb, reskinning Dash into the Infomaniac

This should be good... :)

Actually, someone should make a LEGO Island mod for Alpha Team. Reskin all the characters, replace the sound and the music, etc..

Didn't someone on the forum here say they were trying to crack the Nif 7.0 model format that Alpha Team uses? That would be totally Mod-tastic!

EDIT: Speaking of modding, ever wonder what would happen if the game continued after bad stuff happens to the team members?

ogleteam.jpg

Edited by legomoe
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Didn't someone on the forum here say they were trying to crack the Nif 7.0 model format that Alpha Team uses? That would be totally Mod-tastic!

Sparky said he was, and I was (supposed) to be collabing with me. I've got nothing as of yet, haven't had time to check it out, and IDK about him.

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lol username

Been a tad busy, I'll do the Infomaniac skin sometime tomorrow.

EDIT: Speaking of modding, ever wonder what would happen if the game continued after bad stuff happens to the team members?

ogleteam.jpg

... The heck did you do? xD

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I modified the MM.PUZ file, I just added the extra team members from CREDITS.PUZ, and then changed the object types from team members to zombies. All the .PUZ files are text-based, so editing them like this is a sinch!

Sparky said he was, and I was (supposed) to be collabing with me. I've got nothing as of yet, haven't had time to check it out, and IDK about him.

Actually, since the .PUZ files are so easy to edit, if we could figure out how to load the Nif files, I would love to try and make a 3D map editor for Alpha Team.

It's a stretch, but if we could figure out how to re-import Nif files back into the game, we might even be able to make our own totally custom levels!!!

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Wow haha I just today happened to load up Alpha Team and open up the .pac files for the heck of it. I look it up today and find you've just posted exactly what I needed! What a weird coincidence... :o Thanks so much!

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Wow haha I just today happened to load up Alpha Team and open up the .pac files for the heck of it. I look it up today and find you've just posted exactly what I needed! What a weird coincidence... :o Thanks so much!

You're welcome! I'm always happy when people use my tools!

And while we wait for Jamesster to bring the Infomaniac to Alpha Team, the Infomaniac can still remotely connect via TeeVee:

infotv.jpg

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And while we wait for Jamesster to bring the Infomaniac to Alpha Team, the Infomaniac can still remotely connect via TeeVee:

-snip-

That is the best mod I've seen. :P

It's a stretch, but if we could figure out how to re-import Nif files back into the game, we might even be able to make our own totally custom levels!!!

It's not too much of stretch, that is, if everything else can be modded. My rule of thumb for game modding, if you can import it, you can usually be able to export it. I'm sure those FINs can be imported, and exporting them is the reverse of importing. Now if all the other files support modding of the levels IDK, but if they do, this sounds like an easy game to mod.

Now for my question about the PAC Extractor:

Sadly, the AT Japanese Demo doesn't support running without the PACs. And that demo is all I have access to, so I have to rebuild the PACs for modding. I do know you said

I also can't figure out how to properly rebuild a .pac file, so that's your real reason ;)

But would it be possible to take the Builder code from V1 and modify it to work like V2? V1 requiers a filelist.txt, and one was not created when I used the -all option in V2, and even if one was, it wouldn't work in V1. And while I can use command line, typing the paths to the exe, the file list, and the extracted files can at best be frustating, and if something was wrong, I have to redo the entire thing. You could also make it like JMMB's Python JAM Extractor, where you can drag the folders onto the EXE and it will create an PAC. A Builder would really help is needed in my modding research for the reason stated at the beginning. ;)

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Alright legomoe (or is it just moe. I can hear Wall-E saying "Moe!" right now... :P), I have some more info about the your PAC builder that better explains why a new one is needed.

FileList.txt is created by V1 of your extractor, but not by V2. V1 of your builder has to have FileList.txt, and since there is no V2, I have to use V1 of your tools. FlisList/txt has some numeriac string at the end of each file, and I did think it was the file size expressed in bytes, it's not.

I will tell you what I'm doing, but I'm going to mask the contents because I haven't testing anything.

I have two modded files, A and B. I need to inster them into Pacman.pac, becuase that is where they go. When I added A and B into the vanilla, unmodded files (The Others) and recompressed it into Pacman1.pac. But A and B were not compressed, as stated by the tool itself. I edited FileList.txt to remove the numbers after the names of A and B, and tried to compress again. This time, only The Others were compressed,not A and B, and all Others listed after A and B were not compressed either.

I moved A and B to the bottom of FileList, and tried it again. This time. A was compressed, but not B. I had to extract the pac (called Pacman3.pac), edit FileList, add B into the folder, and compress again (Pacman4.pac). When I loaded the game with this pac, The Others were all active, but A and B were not.

I'm thinking A and B did not activate because I had to edit FileList, and by not understanding why FileLast had those numbers and removing then, I broke the pac.

That's why I think you should make V2 of your Builder. Besides, having a buikder is good. Just becuase it runs without the PACs doesn't mean one shouldn't be created. We don't know of any AT copies that act like Racers 2001, but they just might be real, and those people who ownded that copy couldn't mod, becuase a builder was never created. Maybe JMMB, the great JAM Extractor creator, could download the Japanese Demo and take a whack at the PACs...

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On 8/15/2012 at 4:58 PM, le717 said:

Alright legomoe (or is it just moe. I can hear Wall-E saying "Moe!" right now... :P), I have some more info about the your PAC builder that better explains why a new one is needed.

FileList.txt is created by V1 of your extractor, but not by V2. V1 of your builder has to have FileList.txt, and since there is no V2, I have to use V1 of your tools. FlisList/txt has some numeriac string at the end of each file, and I did think it was the file size expressed in bytes, it's not.

I will tell you what I'm doing, but I'm going to mask the contents because I haven't testing anything.

I have two modded files, A and B. I need to inster them into Pacman.pac, becuase that is where they go. When I added A and B into the vanilla, unmodded files (The Others) and recompressed it into Pacman1.pac. But A and B were not compressed, as stated by the tool itself. I edited FileList.txt to remove the numbers after the names of A and B, and tried to compress again. This time, only The Others were compressed,not A and B, and all Others listed after A and B were not compressed either.

I moved A and B to the bottom of FileList, and tried it again. This time. A was compressed, but not B. I had to extract the pac (called Pacman3.pac), edit FileList, add B into the folder, and compress again (Pacman4.pac). When I loaded the game with this pac, The Others were all active, but A and B were not.

I'm thinking A and B did not activate because I had to edit FileList, and by not understanding why FileLast had those numbers and removing then, I broke the pac.

That's why I think you should make V2 of your Builder. Besides, having a buikder is good. Just becuase it runs without the PACs doesn't mean one shouldn't be created. We don't know of any AT copies that act like Racers 2001, but they just might be real, and those people who ownded that copy couldn't mod, becuase a builder was never created. Maybe JMMB, the great JAM Extractor creator, could download the Japanese Demo and take a whack at the PACs...

Don't worry, I understant why you need a PAC builder.

The reason that V1 created 'FileList.txt' was because those numbers that appear after each file name are found in ech .pac file, and I have no clue what they mean. the game will also crash when trying to load a .pac file if those numbers arn't right. Do with V1 I cheated and when you extract a .pac file, it writes all those 'magic' numbers to the list file, then when you rebuild the .pac file it puts all those numbers back in their place, and the game loads without a problem.

I don't have much time right now, but I'll see if I can get around to making a PAC builder that will be compatible with the V2 extractor!

EDIT: I've created a program to rebuild .pac archives.  I've edited my first post with instructions on how to use it. Make sure you read them.

Edited by Slimy Slug
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  • 10 months later...

I recently found a couple of bugs in my old PAC Tools, so I've gone and re-written a new version of my PAC Extractor program.

You may ask why I haven't re-written the PAC builder program. Well, the answer is that I have discovered that Alpha Team will read files directly from the program's folder (all files must be in the same folder as the .exe). This is great for modding possibilities, since if a modified version of a file exists in the 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder, the game will read it INSTEAD of the one in the .pac archives. It also means that to mod the game, no .pac builder is required (I also can't figure out how to properly rebuild a .pac file, so that's your real reason e345633.png )

Anyway, here's a link to the file: http://www.mediafire...racter_v2.0.zip

It can also extract ALL of the games .pac files at once. Just extract 'PACExtracter2.exe' to your 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder and run it with '-all'. Example: "PACExtracter2.exe -all" (without the quotes)

NOTE: When using '-all', It will extract each pack file into a folder of the same name. If you modify any of these files, you'll need to move them into the same folder as the 'LEGOATeam.exe' file to make the game load them.

EDIT: As requested by le717, here is a utility for rebuilding .pac archives.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/95sbnzmzqoz5ena/PACBuilder_v2.0.zip

To use it, extract the exe to your hard drive and run it from the command line. You'll have to pass it 2 parameters: the path to an existing copy of the .pac file you want to rebuild, and the path to the folder that contains all the extracted files. The program should bundle all the extracted files back into the .pac file.

NOTE: If the program fails for some reason, it might corrupt the .pac file it's working with, so make sure to BACK UP your .pac files before trying to rebuild them.

 

Alright legomoe (or is it just moe. I can hear Wall-E saying "Moe!" right now... e342175.png), I have some more info about the your PAC builder that better explains why a new one is needed.

FileList.txt is created by V1 of your extractor, but not by V2. V1 of your builder has to have FileList.txt, and since there is no V2, I have to use V1 of your tools. FlisList/txt has some numeriac string at the end of each file, and I did think it was the file size expressed in bytes, it's not.

I will tell you what I'm doing, but I'm going to mask the contents because I haven't testing anything.

I have two modded files, A and B. I need to inster them into Pacman.pac, becuase that is where they go. When I added A and B into the vanilla, unmodded files (The Others) and recompressed it into Pacman1.pac. But A and B were not compressed, as stated by the tool itself. I edited FileList.txt to remove the numbers after the names of A and B, and tried to compress again. This time, only The Others were compressed,not A and B, and all Others listed after A and B were not compressed either.

I moved A and B to the bottom of FileList, and tried it again. This time. A was compressed, but not B. I had to extract the pac (called Pacman3.pac), edit FileList, add B into the folder, and compress again (Pacman4.pac). When I loaded the game with this pac, The Others were all active, but A and B were not.

I'm thinking A and B did not activate because I had to edit FileList, and by not understanding why FileLast had those numbers and removing then, I broke the pac.

That's why I think you should make V2 of your Builder. Besides, having a buikder is good. Just becuase it runs without the PACs doesn't mean one shouldn't be created. We don't know of any AT copies that act like Racers 2001, but they just might be real, and those people who ownded that copy couldn't mod, becuase a builder was never created. Maybe JMMB, the great JAM Extractor creator, could download the Japanese Demo and take a whack at the PACs...

Don't worry, I understant why you need a PAC builder.

The reason that V1 created 'FileList.txt' was because those numbers that appear after each file name are found in ech .pac file, and I have no clue what they mean. the game will also crash when trying to load a .pac file if those numbers arn't right. Do with V1 I cheated and when you extract a .pac file, it writes all those 'magic' numbers to the list file, then when you rebuild the .pac file it puts all those numbers back in their place, and the game loads without a problem.

I don't have much time right now, but I'll see if I can get around to making a PAC builder that will be compatible with the V2 extractor!

EDIT: I've created a program to rebuild .pac archives. Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/95sbnzmzqoz5ena/PACBuilder_v2.0.zip

I've edited my first post with instructions on how to use it. Make sure you read them.

I don't understand how to Extrac the .pac file :( can u help me?

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[ unnecessary quote nonsense]

I don't understand how to Extrac the .pac file :( can u help me?

Did you read the README file included with the download that had a Usage section?

USAGE: Extract the 'PACExtractor2.exe' file to somewhere on your hard drive,

Open a console window (Windows XP: Open the start menu, select run, enter

"cmd", press ok.

Windows 7: open start menu, type "cmd" into the box with the text "Search

programs and files". click on "cmd.exe" under programs)

In the console window, navigate to the directory where you extracted the

file using the 'cd' command (type "cd C:YourDirectoryPathHere").

To extract a .pac file, run PACExtractor2.exe by typing:

"PACExtractor2.exe <C:PathTopacfile> <C:folderyouwanttoextractto>"

without the < and > brackets or the quotes and hit enter.

NOTE: the folder you try and extract too needs to already exist, otherwise things

wont work right.

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  • 1 year later...

I have discovered that Alpha Team will read files directly from the program's folder (all files must be in the same folder as the .exe). This is great for modding possibilities, since if a modified version of a file exists in the 'LEGO Alpha Team' folder, the game will read it INSTEAD of the one in the .pac archives.

 

Does this mean each folder corresponding the the .pac name must be present in the same folder as the exe, or all the extracted files have to be dumped in the root? I tried the latter, but the game kept crashing. Maybe I was doing it wrong...

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  • 1 year later...

Thanks for putting these excellent tools together, legomoe.

 

I've successfully extracted all the .pac files and created a complete HD texture overhaul that makes hundreds of textures 8x their original resolution. Ideally I'd like to recompile the textures into their original .pac files for distribution, however upon using the PACBuilder to repack the files (successfully, I'm pretty sure, they're 400MB-500MB each now with the new textures), the game does not read them. I renamed the original Map.pac and Etc.pac files in the install directory - I have the jewel case version of the game, a 2000 release I believe - and placed my new ones in, but even so the game still somehow loads the original textures and ignores my new ones. A search on my computer for other instances of "Map.pac" files yielded nothing, so I'm completely stumped as to why the new files aren't being loaded.

 

Would anyone be able to suggest a solution?

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Change the extension of the original PAC files to something else (for example, Map.totallynotapacfile) or just move them out of the folder entirely. The game doesn't require PAC files with the original names to be present, it'll look for any .PAC files it can find (as well as for files not in .PACs, as said in the OP).

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  • 2 years later...

For anyone stumbling across here in the future:

 

The PAC Rebuilder is unable to use paths with spaces and/or special charackters in my example it is installed in ...\Program Files (x86)\...

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  • 1 year later...
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