Pakrat is a graphical replacement for the BSPZIP program, that allows you to embed external files, such as textures (vtf), material (vmt) and model (mdl) files into a HL2 bsp file.
Note: This program is written for Half-Life 2 and other Source Engine games. There's another program called "PakRat" that was written by somebody else for the Quake series of games. The two programs do different things and are completly unrelated.
A fair number of changes in this new version (download here). The texture viewer can now handle HDR (16-bits-per-channel format) textures, and more information about model files can be viewed. Scan and Autoscan now search for a wider range of files, including custom skybox, soundscape, and description files, submodels and gibmodels of model files, and other custom content such as DoD:S icon files and overview maps (in CS:S and DoD:S).
The file list can now be sorted (by menu or clicking on the table headers), or displayed as a directory-tree format.
Tutorial meister WiseMX has created a handy video tutorial (6Mb download) that shows how to use Pakrat. You may need to download this codec to view it.
No major changes due for the next version of Pakrat, except that I'm working on getting adding support for HDR content and fixing a few bugs. Expect it soon after the new Source SDK is out of beta.
A few changes in the latest version (download). The program now requires the newer version of the Java Runtime Environment, 1.5.0. (sorry for those using 1.4.2, but I got fed up with the lack of generics). The loading and saving of files is now considerably faster, and I've added a progress bar during scan/autoscan. Pakrat can now handle bsp files where the Pak lump isn't the last lump in the file (rare, but might happen if you're using Entspy).
On saving a BSP file, Pakrat now checks for .nav (navigation mesh) files in the Pak. If it finds one, it gives you the option of updating the embedded .nav file to prevent the annoying "Navigation Mesh was built using a different version of this map" message from the game that appears on map load. (This is triggered by any change in the .bsp file length since the navigation mesh was built - due to embedding the .nav file itself, for instance.)
A minor update (download) that fixes a slight bug, and tries to simplify the interface a little.
The Auto Scan feature can now be run in two ways:
I hope this is a little easier to understand.
I know I said I wasn't going to update Pakrat anymore, but I had a few features half-way completed and so I went ahead and finished them off. Version 0.9 (download) has a bunch of new features:
Pakrat was actually written before bspzip was released in the SDK, and so does not depend on it at all. You can download it here. It is a Java program, and requires the Java Runtime Environment 1.5.0 (download) or later to run. (Note: If you've already installed the Java Runtime Environment 1.5.0 for use with VMEX, you don't need to download and installed the JRE again).
It is currently at version 0.8 and works reasonably well. I do not plan to update it any more, now that BSPZIP and other GUI versions are available.