TeamPatcher is destinated to modders wishing to create self-installing mods for GP4.
User opening Teampatcher will have a list of choices between install files modder have created. User can then choose to select another GP4 path than default one before installing the mod. That's as simple as that for user.
TeamPatcher provides player a 3 steps installation :
1- Choosing mod file to install from the list of available mods (.car files)
2- Checking GP4 Path and changing it if needed
3- Clicking on "Install" Button to Install mod.
The Advanced button offers additional settings for players having several cars wad other than original cars.wad in GP4's folder.
It provides to disable .car file update (not needed more than once) and to choose the cars wad to update.
As you can see, Installing mod is really simple.
TeamPatcher offers many modularity features, depending on your own desires.
TeamEditor .car files
TeamPatcher is built around .car files. At startup, it looks for any .car file (saved with Cameditor v5.0 to v6.6 or TeamEditor up to v3.0) in the same folder as itself and offer the choice to the user which .car settings will be installed in GP4.
Note that if you only want to update some files in user's cars.wad, you can use an empty .car file, saved from TeamEditor with no data selected.
Informative text
You can display informative text in TeamPatcher through text (.txt) files.
If you want to use a general header text for your update, you can use a file
named "Main.txt" placed in the same folder as TeamPatcher.
For each .car file, you can also use a .txt file having the same name as the
.car file but with .txt extension to bring additional informations about that
particular file.
If no .txt file exists for a .car file present, TeamPatcher will automatically
create an informative text based on .car content anyhow
Update cars.wad
TeamPatcher can also update cars.wad file for selected GP4 Installation.
- Any file put in a folder named 'Common' in the same place as TeamPatcher
will be updated in cars wad whatever the .car you choose.
This is interesting for common textures.
- To install only some files related to the .car file you chose, you can copy
files to update in a folder named as the corresponding .car file in the same
directory as TeamPatcher (for example, if Renault.car file is selected by user
and a "Renault" folder exits, cars.wad will be updated with all files
from that folder). These files will only be updated in cars wad if you selected
the .car file having the same name as the folder.
Obviously, you can also use both technics, using a common 'Common' folder for
common files and named folders for each .car installation you are offering.
Note: If one of your carshape is released without according cockpit texture (cp_team.tex file), TeamPatcher will automatically create a copy of original team texture to replace missing texture.
Banner or preview image
TeamPatcher can display any image as banner or preview.
That image must be named GP4Image.jpg and be placed in the same folder as TeamPatcher.
If no image exists, TeamPatcher will only display informations but if it exists,
TeamPatcher will display it as follow :
- If image is more long than high, it will be placed at top and the informative
text will be displayed in the middle.
- If image is more high than long, it will be placed on the left and the informative
text will be displayed on the right part.
In Both cases, the install window will be adpated to the biggest dimension of
the image.
Creating Auto-installations
Once all files are ready, you then only need a compression program to reduce size of your download.
Near every program can make Auto-install (also called exe or sfx) compressed files.
I personnaly use Winrar wich is fast and can reduce size of files far better than winzip. Anyhow, as final file will be an exe, final user do not have to deal with compression tool at all and you can really use any compressor.
Winrar procedure is simple but needs to follow some steps :
1- Select all the files needed for install, that means TeamPatcher.exe, your .car file(s), the .txt file(s) describing the .car file(s), the preview image that will be displayed in TeamPatcher, 'Common' folder if some files to install are shared by many carshapes and individual folders for car specific files.
2- Right-clic one of the file and select "Add to archive".
3- Select 'RAR' format with Best compression ratio and click "create sfx archive" in the right panel.
4- Go to "advanced" tab and click on "sfx options" button
5- Input "TeamPatcher.exe" (without quotes) in "Run after extraction" field.
6- Go to "mode" Tab and check "unpack to temporary folder" (else user will have to choose a folder where all your files will be extracted too before installation, what can be interesting for advanced users too), and "hide all" silent mode.
7- You can then go back to general tab and click on "save current settings as default" for further auto-installations
8- Click on "ok" to close sfx options windows and "ok" again to start final compression.
9- Your auto-install is ready.
TeamPatcher is rather effective when it is used for what it has been designed : car mods.
You can obviously also use it for other car related things as helmets or maybe tyres but be sure to make tests before releasing such updates as this files have singularities (some helmets are not in cars.wad for example).
I hope this tool could help to simplify car mods and coupled with an auto-exe compressor program, it can create really handy mods installation.
Have a good time releasing your mods,
Laurent Rousseau (aka Lo2k)