Installing custom skins for L4D Created 15 years ago2008-12-04 18:00:42 UTC by The Mad Carrot

Seriously, what a fucking pain in the goddamn ass!

Someone install this custom molotov skin:
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/55423
and tell me if you get it to work, because i can't. I make the required changes in the pak01_dir.vpk file (why should we do that anyway? Skins with the same name and in the same directory relative to the one in the VPK files should automatically overwrite the original texture, like in all the other Source games!

Ill bet your ass you can't get this skin to work ingame, it makes your pak01_dir.vpk file invalid, and L4D crashes with a cannot find console/background01.vtf error.

I don't get it.

What a piece of shit method to install custom skins! Goddamn...

Jack Daniels in a beer bottle?

Nonsensicle skin is nonsensicle.

Anyhow, I have no idea how to even get to the files to make custom skins. L4D is not mod friendly. D:

No doesn't work. I followed the readme exactly after trying to rename the materials to the original names like I'd normally do for HL2 etc.

It causes an engine error for some reason so :S

Were you trying to play online with it? That might be the problem, because apparently L4D dedicated server's don't like custom content, according to this: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/55392

It's not the case. It won't even load due to an engine error after editing the weird pak file.

Why did they use that format anyway? Much simpler to drag materials folder in...

I'm gonna try another skin to see what their README says.

Seems you gotta extract the file from the NFC file:

http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/7355

What i really find annoying, is that you have to edit the pak01_dir.vpk file for every custom skin you want to install. If you have many skins installed, you're gonna lose track of it.

Seriously Valve, whats up with this method? It should be quick and easy, like putting the custom skins in the correct directory relative to the path in the VPK. But noo, you have to edit tons of files as well and if you screw up, the game doesn't want to load.

Mod friendly? No way in hell, dude.
Return the GCF file format at once, darn it!

Hm supposedly there's a rumour that using the VPK extractor with Steam open may get you VAC banned since it means you can edit the skins to stand out etc...

Hm supposedly there's a rumour that using the VPK extractor with Steam open may get you VAC banned since it means you can edit the skins to stand out etc...

That doens't make sense at all. How are you supposed to create custom skins for the mod community if you're not allowed to extract them first?

To quote the AVGN: This blows my mind, its like WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?

Right it won't work and to add it all now I've gotta remember what I extracted as it filled up the folders with like 1 or 2 gig of files.

By extracting all the files it loaded fine but when I loaded a map it took ages and then instantly crashes with no warning.

Pfft not worth it.

Edit

Bah I tried removing it all but some of the files are needed so now I have 3 gig of wasted space XD

And you're right to quote AVGN. This is worse than dog shit.