The problem of doing this is that almost half of the models and materials are already in L4D2 so doing a copy and paste of all that files will add a lot of duplicate data.
So i decided to check what needs to be included and what doesn't by comparing both games, and then packed it all in a single VPK for easy installation, just like any other downloaded campaign.
This would have been a tedious task but there are nice applications out there like ADCS (http://www.heatsoft.com/adcs/ADCSindex.html) that let you compare folders and get rid of duplicated files easily.
Download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IA9H1B5R
Advantages:
-Easy install, single VPK file
-269Mb download, 750Mb once installed
-No need to edit or replace any L4D2 files
Disadvantages:
-Doesn't include original L4D1 campaigns
-Add-on campaigns will still need to be updated for new weapons (only baseball bats may spawn for now)
Bugs:
-The only campaign I've seen to work on l4d1 and not on l4d2 with this method is Dismember the Alamo, many of the props and doors don't appear. The console log doesn't seem to explain why.
-For some reason some campaigns seem to force some types of infected, like military, and it seems to me that when this happens some of the normal infected have fluorescent shirts or similar (see pics below)
-Finally original L4D1 campaign, aside from the previous bug, will eventually crash probably because the lack of dialogs or some other custom stuff they trigger.
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I don't know if Valve will fix this in any way, like making L4D2 access L4D1 assets, but if they don't something like this should be done so that l4d1 campaigns are available in L4D2 without their authors having to add all those models and materials in their campaign which again would be a lot of unnecessary duplicated data.
Any feedback or help so that we can have a definitive and easy to install fix for custom campaigns would be great, so this is what i managed to do. Hope some of you can fix any of these little bugs.
Pics:
With and without the mod, Highway to hell map to compare
Bug of fluorescent zombies on some campaigns, including the official ones
Campaigns known to work properly:
- Coald Blood v13
- Death Aboard v7 (with baseball bat)
- Death Row v1
- Dead Echo v3
- Suicide Blitz v1 (with baseball bat)
Campaigns known to cause issues:
- Highway to Hell (2.1a) includes it's own _master.cache file which overrides L4D2's one causing sound glitches on some sounds, and sounds new in L4D2 to disappear. Possible fix: Unpack, delete the file, repack then update sound cache if necessary from console.
- Dismember the Alamo (v2) seems to use custom models that load correctly in L4D1 but not in L4D2, i don't know yet why.
- Fly Gabe v2 seems to spawn a survivor in a lower floor and you cant get the elevator to go down, i don't know if this if just in L4D2 or also in L4D1.
- Heaven Can Wait v8 spawns some fluorescent zombies. (supports baseball bat)
