Half-Life uses an archiving system that began with the Quake games to store
the extremely large number of sprite, sound, and model files that are used
in the game. These files are contained in .pak files, which are stored in
the Valve directory and mod directories. The file pak0.pak in the valve
directory holds the orginal sprites, sounds, etc. for Half-Life. These files
are essentially used as defaults for the game, and also for other mods built
to work on the Half-Life engine. A mod such as TF also has a pak0.pak
located in the mod's base folder (tfc in this case). If you open up a .pak
file with a utility such as PakExplorer or QPed, you will notice that the archive is
arranged with directories that mirror the directory of the mod. There are
sprite, sound, and model folders within the .pak file, just as there are
sprite, sound, and model folders in the mod folder.
So how does the game decide what file to use for a particular sprite or
sound? The breakdown is as follows:
First Choice: Actual mod directory folder. We'll take the HUD as an example.
The HUD sprite is 640hud7.spr, and it is originally found only in the
pak0.pak in the valve folder. However, if you made a custom HUD (See here)
and placed a new file named 640hud7.spr in Half-Life/tfc/sprites, the game
will use that file to create the HUD when you're playing.
Second Choice: Highest numbered .pak file in the mod directory. It is
possible to edit and create .pak files with a utility such as Qped. The
files must be numbered sequentially in order to work correctly (you must
have a pak1.pak if you expect to also use a pak2.pak, etc.). So let's say
you made a new pak1.pak with a sprites folder in the tfc directory and
placed your new HUD sprite in it. That sprite would be used as long as there
was no HUD sprite in Half-Life/tfc/sprites. FYI, you could have a completely
different 640hud7.spr in your .pak file and in you tfc/sprites folder and
you won't get any errors. The game will simply use the sprite from
tfc/sprites. If you don't have a HUD sprite in pak1.pak, then the game will
look in pak0.pak and use a sprite from there if one exists.
Third choice: Highest numbered .pak file in the Half-Life/valve directory.
Remember that the original 640hud7.spr was found in pak0.pak in the valve
folder? The game will look in the Half-Life/valve folder and its .pak files as a final resort to find files that haven't been changed for a particular mod.
.pak files can be extremely helpful for customizing the game. Say you wanted
to share your custom titles.txt, crosshairs, and HUD with some
friends. You can use Qped to build a new .pak file and load all your new
files into it. Start up Qped and you will have a new .pak archive. You need to
create directories that mimic the game, as mentioned above. So here we will create
a new directory and rename it "sprites":
Next we add the necessary files. I find it easiest to simply drag and drop in Windows
Explorer, which works like a charm. For this example I added titles.txt and fonts.wad
to the root folder. Then I added the HUD, crosshair, and other sprite file to the
sprites directory:
Click for full image.
Finally I save the file as pak1.pak in Sierra\Half-Life\tfc. Anyone who
receives it will only have to place this one file in their tfc folder to get a bunch of new
junk, and to get rid of it if they decide to they can just delete the .pak.
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