BSPzip tutorial

BSPzip Tutorial

BSPzip is a tool (that comes with the SourceSDK) to pack your custom content into your BSP file. I recommend this for anyone that is making a map that needs to be easily installed.

Tools needed:

If you have the SourceSDK then you should already have everything needed.

Let's get it started

What you need to do is copy the map file that you will be using into your bin folder and then make a new text document, name the document whatever you want (please do not to make any spaces in the chosen name). Open up the text document and then put all the directory paths to the files on different lines, here is an example:

[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx80.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx90.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl.ztmp
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy.ztmp
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.sw.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd.ztmp

Now you need to tell BSPzip where to put the files in the bsp, so put the names of where the files where go relative to the game path. Here is another example:

models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx80.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx80.vtx
models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx90.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.dx90.vtx
models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl
models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl.ztmp
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.mdl.ztmp
models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy
models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy.ztmp
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.phy.ztmp
models\pufuwozu\monkey.sw.vtx
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.sw.vtx
models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd
models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd.ztmp
[steam directory]\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\models\pufuwozu\monkey.vvd.ztmp

Now to finish it off you have to add a new line at the end of the list, if you do not do this the last file will not be included.

Making a .bat

Now you have to make a .bat file to run BSPzip (you could also do this in command line, though). Make this .bat in your bin directory:

bspzip.exe -addlist [BSP NAME] [.TXT FILE LIST] [NEW BSP NAME]
pause

The new bsp name can be the same as the one you had before but it will overwrite the bsp.

Viewing BSPZIPed content

You can view zipped files in a map with BSPZIP, too. The command is -dir but to make it easy for you, here is a script:

"%sourcesdk%/bin/bspzip.exe" -dir %1
pause

Save those two lines as a .bat file and whenever you drag a map over it, you will get a list of all the files inside. If someone knows how to add an 'extraxt? y/n' prompt to the script, please do it! :-)

Have fun!

Run the .bat file and you should have a BSPzipped file. Delete or rename the original file(s) that you added and then have a test. If they work that means you did it right.

-pufuwozu