Yeah, the way I have my folder set up, I install a clean copy of the game, then my overhaul textures and models from a different folder. Then peds, then cars, and then addons of my custom new skins and objects that go with some of my mods. If your GTA3.IMG goes over 2.03 gigs in size, img tool 2.0 will fail on archive rebuild and corrupt it. Its not capable of working with a .img of that size or larger. The one I put the link to allows for editing and rebuilding of the .img files up to the game engine limitation which is 4 gigs. Anything above 3.5 gigs however becomes unstable/slow loading. Ultimate editor is okay for vehicle handling. But I dont like the way it handles anything else. It changes lots of stats by affecting globals. That can cause instability in the engine.
On sound: with most ambient files, you can change them to whatever you want as long as its at least 2.5 seconds long. The file size for the effect can be no larger than 10.5mb or the game will probably crash. To get the same sample and bit rate use audacity. Open the sound you want to replace, open the sound you want to use. Drag your sound onto the track behind theirs. It will automatically adjust the bit rates while maintaining proper speed and pitch. Then edit out the default sound. For ANY file in the SFX grouping you must do this AND make sure that it is the exact same length down to the hundredth of a second. Otherwise you will get sounds playing where they should not. Sometimes an engine noise when punching or horns when running. Basically the normal issues you hear reported from sound mods. What I meant with the rain error was not the one where you lose all audio, but rather, when you mess with SFX group files, if you dont do it right, the rain will sound like its raining ball bearings or something lol. In my opinion, its not good to use SAAT. It is nothing more than a GUI for an older program that works almost flawlessly as long as you remove the GUI from it.
Radio stations. In order to properly replace songs in the radio chanels, each song MUST be broken into three sections. A short 'intro' section, the main portion, and a short 'outro' section. That is how the game reads them. Not doing it in this was leads to unusual pauses in radio play and game freezes. It can also lead to audio corruption for some reason. Again, each sound file can NOT exceed 10.5mb and should be kept under 10mb for stability.
Mission passed and property purchased sounds are in the BEATS audio group as well as the dance and lowrider mini games. These files when exported properly will contain an .ini file that has beat timing in milliseconds. This means that not only can you replace the dance and lowrider minigame songs, but you can retime the arrows to match them! Song length is not important by my testing but again the 10.5mb rule applies. Also, for stability ALL sound files in AMBIANCE and BEATS should be in .ogg format. Sounds in the GENRL, PAIN, and conversation audio should be in .wav.
The game laoding songs are in GENRL section, bank 74 I believe. These MUST be kept the same length to avoid audio issues.
I couldn't agree more on the mixing of norms and touhou's. I want all the norms gone too, but was trying to think of a solution that didnt involve shooting touhou girls with a 12 gauge lol. I sin sacked all the cops and fbi and army and swat guys. I thought it was funny to shove their hats/helmets back on afterwards too. There are a couple of non touhou in my peds file. I think Miku is in there once. Also squid girl replaced the toga girl in pleasure domes. There may be one or two others but Im not sure. At first, my mod was just going to be mixed anime. Then I decided to make it all touhou. A couple have not yet been removed/replaced for one reason or another. Also to keep the .img file size small enough to allow integration with full car replacement/srt/project oblivion I cross rigged some of the existing peds to have touhou heads and features. Kept the poly count at any given group render from lagging the engine and added a lot more variety than just seeing different versions of the same characters wearing the same thing. Some are better outcomes than other. If you look closely you can tell some of my early rigs/cross rigs from my newest ones. Getting proper movement without 'mesh snags' and things on peds moving when they should not is the result of 'weighting verts' to the proper bones via the 'absolute effect'. This has been an ongoing practice for me. Vehicles well..... I don't do them that often anymore. Mostly make them to answer requests on the gta forum. The suika truck was actually the FIRST vehicle I ever even modded.
Integration: Yes, i went into the final srt and added new models and textures to turn several of the places in SA into the real thing during upgrade.
well stacked - Pizzu Hut
Cluckin' bell to subway - cause I like subway
burgar shot to McDonalds
Victim to Hot Topic
Zip to Gap
Binco to ross
Pro laps to Footlocker
Sub Urban to JC Penney
Dieder to Mens Warehouse
sex shop in lv to Anime store
Observatory to Scarlet Devil mansion - work in progress. Still need to give it a proper roof, add the rear balcony etc. And of course it has to remain within the constraints of its map section.
All with customized interiors. I did miss the dieder sign on its changing room door, but only because I have not found the texture for that door yes
There are many other touhou spoofs and references placed around the map as well. Zero's RC shop is now a Kyosho rc and is full of touhou nendroids for sale.
Another example of a reference is the electronics stores in LV have been changed to 'Okuu Electrical'. I dont think I have a billboard that isnt anime related. All loading/save/setting/option screens are touhou. I am making large amounts of touhou clothing for CJ as well. Other projects I am working on for people require CJ but they like anime and touhou and have asked for outfits. If your using Ryoske's skin selecter I have confirmed with him before on the gta forums that mid 90's is the stability limit for his skin selector. He has no current interest in upgrading/fixing or creating new mods for GTA because he has taken interest in modding a different game. Kon has likewise moved on to another game series. I have been working closely with some developers working on the needed scripts to safely and properly create/mod skinned objects for GTA IV as well. So as soon as we see the fruits of these labors, expect to see touhou mods on the IV RAGE engine1
I will put up some pics of my rebuilt area 51 and airport. These will be an example of 'fun with map editors'. Just remember that if you install any version of srt or po, the map editors will not be able to load anymore, so keep an unmodded copy of the game somewhere for map edit reference and then manually add/remove entries from existing IDE/IPL files or create new ones and add their cue to the gta.dat file.
Anywho, that my ramble for now!
-Fox
