Error creating custom skin packs (pk3)

Hello, I have a very noob questionI am trying to create custom character packs as pk3 files to make it easier for my friends to activate a number of skins with one click. I started with a base character pack and tried adding in characters into their respective folders (graphics, sounds, etc.).

I get an error (or crash) when trying to launch the new pk3. I've tried unzipping and rezipping and renaming the file to packname.pk3 as I read online this would work. It did not. Looking at the name on the folder, it says the file type is still a pk3. Is there something I am doing wrong?

Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

You need to do this through SLADE. A conventional compressed file manager will not work as the PK3 files that SRB2 expects contain a special header.

Though... If you create the PK3 through SLADE, you can edit it with whatever you normally use afterwards.



It's also worth mentioning that repacking files is frowned upon.

Thank you for your help! What "special header" does the game look for?

Also, why is repacking files frowned upon? I apologize for my ignorance here.

By "header" I meant something akin to a file format. Creating a PK3 through making a simple ZIP and renaming it to PK3 won't do, as true PK3s (like the ones made through SLADE) have a slightly different format.
It's not something you add manually, by the way - SLADE does it automatically when creating a new zip-like PK3 file.





Repacking files is frowned upon partly due to how repacking is often executed, and partly because it prevents recognizing the creator of some content in it easily.

When somebody reads "repacking", what one would envision (at least me lol) is, for example, a person picking different characters from different files or cherry picking characters from a character pack, then sloppily dropping them on a megapack of sorts, with little to no regard to compatibility with each other, the game, or what not.
Apart from the game having the potential to obliterate itself from existence, there's also the issue where (some) server hosts serve this file expecting people to download their massive 50mb megawad, which is, of course, unreasonable.
Some creators don't like this repacking thing because it screws with file versioning (how do you know what version of X do you have when it's smushed with many other things?) as well as making it harder or unable for players to find other works by the creator (maybe the mod didn't come with credits within because it is expected you'd look for the file name and find a link to the relevant thread).

There are also other reasons I may be omitting, such as creators expecting the repacker to ask first before commiting to the act, but they don't.

Of course, some peeps are okay with this as long as this superwad is kept strictly private, be it because you want an easier access to the mods you like instead of loading them one by one (even though there are several methods to do this...), or you want to easily share the mods you want to play with your friends without sending every single link/file, or eh

I may be explaining this badly, but that's basically the gist of it.

With that said, I don't speak for anybody in here, but if you're just sharing your repack with your friends so they have an easier time "installing" it, then it's generally fine, however if you plan on hosting it for the public, you'd probably want to ask every creator in there if they're fine with such amalgamation.

Ah I see! Yes the goal was to make it easier for my friends to install mods/skins with one click to play locally. That makes sense to me for the rest and I definitely am not trying to tread on any toes.

You mentioned that there were other ways to make it easier to apply mods then clicking 1 by 1, can you recommend another method for me to look into?

Thank you for all your responses!

As long as you're doing a private pack for your friends only, everything's cool and good - Just make sure you're not trying to put incompatible things on top of another or you're going to have script errors and whatnot.


One way to achieve the thing you want in a more friendly way is to use the -file parameter on your side and select the mods you want to play with, as well as jotting down somewhere this huge parameter string you might end with so you don't have to type it again. (Mainly because the game could crash anytime and you might lose the motivation to type every individual file again lol)
Then you just add to a .zip or something the mods you want to host with and send them over to your friends, who then would have to unpack it where SRB2(Kart) is located, then proceed to launch the game and join your server. The players' game will then look at the server's file list and load the required mods automatically, in order.
No need from the joiners to load them manually - The game will do it automatically when joining a server, provided the joiner has the files.

For example, you have VC_Char.wad and VS_Map.wad. To have the game start with these mods loaded, you would have to make a batch file (or use CMD) and have the game be launched like
(or srb2kart)
You can additionally add the -server parameter, which alone will start the server without advertising to the master server.


I hope that made sense, explaining things is not my thing