SA Modding Guide - GTASA Modding guide Part-1

GTA San Andreas

GTA San Andreas is a free world action game developed by Rockstar Games in 2004. It was launched for consoles at beginning and then later for PC. Most of the PC these days can run this game very easily and smoothly in high setting. This game is 3^rd 3d edition in GTA series by Rockstar Games and 5^th in all GTA series. This game is much featured but it is not so comparable with the graphics of the modern day’s games like Sleeping Dogs, GTA IV, GTAV, etc. This game is one of my favorite games because its game play and features are awesome. GTA San Andreas features hairstyles, changeable clothes, tattoos, more than 200+ road vehicles, 20+ flying vehicles and some 8+ boats. I am using + in each number because we can add more custom vehicles. I am a regular gamer and GTA San Andreas modder. You may find some similar information in other sites but what I have written is in very easy format because when I was beginner at this field I searched for many topics but I didn’t find them in straight way. Ok enough with this introduction; let’s get on with main subject.

MODDING GTA SAN ANDREAS

Modding or modifying a GTA game, seems very heavy or hard word but it isn’t so hard at all once you get to it because it isn’t like learning a new programming language or reading for exams. As you already know that GTA San Andreas is highly featured game but it is also highly customizable, of course you should know how to do that. GTA San Andreas is not only the game to finish, it is a game to test your skill. Now before beginning the real modding there’s some things that you need to know. Possibility is that you will not read all the information if I explained it because reading is very boring thing. So, I am just going to give this information in brief. Let’s get started:

i. GTA San Andreas’s file system

I mean by file system is the folders and files in GTA San Andreas. GTA San Andreas has several folder, their sub-folder and many files. This is a advance note for you; I am not a extremely expert. There are many files in this game’s file system whose functions I also don’t know. But I ensure that this knowledge of mine is very important for being a good modder. At 1^st let’s get a look at the directory of GTA San Andreas.

 

Following is the list of folders in main folders and the files contained inside the folders in the above's image/GTA San Andreas's main directory.

1. Anim: This folder has 3 files in default and this 3 files which contains all the animation files like jumping movement, walking movement, etc.

2. Audio: This folder contains the audio files of the game. All audios like game radio, actor voice, peds voices, etc. This files can be opened with a program named Alci’s SAAT GUI Front End. “Config” folder have configuration files for audio, “SFX” have all the sounds like various types of weapons sound, vehicles audio sound, engine sounds, player sound, peds sound, etc and “streams” has all the radio stations’ audio, advertisement audio, etc.

3. Data: This folder contains the configuration files of the games. Configure means giving definition to the models and other files. For example giving cars features, placing various buildings, trees, etc. There are many things and I cannot tell you all. It will take very long time. It has certain files like “vehicles.ide” which contains all the definitions of the vehicles. Definition here means type of car like(sports, normal), type of peds driving cars, animation type(like bus door animation , bike animation, etc) and some more. It also give ID to the vehicles which help in the car spanning. It also has “handling.cfg”, “gta.dat” and several files which configure the game.

4. Models: It is very important as it contains all the models and texture files of the game. Models and textures are packed in .img files and most of them are in gta3.img. 3d models files of GTA San Andreas are in .dff format and texture files are in .txd format. “Player.img” is the private file i.e. contains the file of player only. The files are of the clothes and player face. Img files can be opened by programs like img tool, img manager(recommended). Txd files can be opened with txd workshop and dff models files can be opened with 3d modeling software like 3ds max, gmax and Zmodeler 2. We should use Kam's max script to open dff files in Autodesk's 3ds max. 

5. Movies: Not important. Just contains the video that plays during the game startup, the one with nvidia logo i.e. in default.

6. Read Me: It contains the readme files by the game publishers.

7. Text: This is also important because it contains the language or text files of GTA San Andreas. In the game you can see vehicles name, place name, etc flash in screen. This files are in these files and in .gxt format.

In next part of this guide I am going to introduce you to some of the very famous modding styles or mods type of GTA San Andreas and also introduce you to CLEO. As I already mentioned above, I haven’t explained the functions and files inside the folders in detailed way.