Replace any vehicle in GTA 5 | Lvl1 ∙ Part 1 ► Preparation of files
Replace any vehicle in GTA 5 | Lvl1 ∙ Part 1 ► Preparation of files
Learn how to replace any vehicle in GTA 5 by any mod.
Hey and welcome in my first basic tutorials series. First of all why is this called Level 1 and Part 1 of it? Well, there is lot of to explain while we want replace vehicle 100% properly which is the key to run tons of mods together. But you still asking why levels right? There are lot of vehicle types in game as car, bike, plane, boat and even one type as car may have many categories that makes differences in their data as military vehicle, special skill vehicles etc. But we will start from the easiest and more all the way thru all types, so let’s start.
In this first part we will check what we have to prepare and explain what files will change what aspect of vehicle in game to understand what we will be doing in next parts. So let’s download any mod that we will work as the example. Looking on most downloaded vehicles I would like to choose Lamborghini Reventon, yes I like Lambo, but I aswell like SCRAT’s mods and other works as tutorials etc. Here is the link.
Gettin’ files ready
Once you download the mod you can find there both folders ‘ADD-ON’ and ‘REPLACE’. Normally you would use files for replace and replace Vacca, but for our learning purposes I want you to delete ‘REPLACE’ folder and we are going to replace another model, let’s say I’ve choose Reaper.
In SCRAT’s mods add-on need to be downloaded separate, so open the link from ‘ADD-ON’ folder and download addon model. You can donate his awesome work, but you can download it for free there as well. Once you downloaded it you can find ‘dlc.rpf’ in ‘Files’ folder.
If this is your first time ever using any mods, you need to download some tools to prepare. I will not explain it here, but you have to read ‘Quick start modding guide by ikt’. And don’t forgot, ALWAYS USE MODS FOLDER AND BACKUP YOUR FILES!
You ready now right? Ok, let’s open OpenIV and scroll up ‘GTA V’ to close game files as we don’t need them yet. Open your prepared ‘dlc.rpf’ by SCRAT and move it to the OpenIV.
Open following location:
dlc.rpf > x64 > vehicles.rpf
Here you can see model files. Move all of them ( lamboreventon.yft, lamboreventon_hi.yft and lamboreventon.ytd ) into any new folder where you want prepare all files that we would work with. Change all ‘lamboreventon’ to ‘reaper’ — this mean you should have following files in your folder ( reaper.yft, reaper_hi.yft and reaper.ytd ).
This step is not necessary for mod to work but as we want replace car 100% right go back to OpenIV and open ‘Search’ tool ( shortcut key is Ctrl-F3 ) and search for the name of the car we are going to replace and add ‘+hi.ytd’ at the end. In our case it means ‘reaper+hi.ytd’. Why we are doing this is because not every model have ‘…+hi.ytd’ file which is something like higher quality details for basic textures ‘.ytd’ file.
General meaning of this splitting of 2 textures files is to have different files for different graphics settings you set in your game, but in our moding world it help with not overloading content and kind of lower used settings on it’s own. For example if you have lot of mods and your game stop loading some textures it use only ‘.ytd’ files and don’t load ‘+hi.ytd’ files to relieve itself from loading too many big files.
In our case this file exist but mod itself don’t have it. So we simply take our ‘reaper.ytd’ file, make a copy and rename it to ‘reaper+hi.ytd’. As I mentioned this step is not necessary for model to work properly, it’s for purpose of game with tons of mods work properly and in future more expert guides it allow you optimize files better and keep quality at the same time.
Let’s move to the second location:
dlc.rpf > x64 > vehiclemods
Here you see ‘lamboreventon_mods.rpf’ which are tuning parts for the car. Let’s use OpenIV search tool to check if our vanilla vehicle is using any tuning parts already. To do so search for car name and add ‘_mods’ at the end. In our case it would be ‘reaper_mods’. Hooray, it found it so it would be easier to use them, but more details in later parts of tutorial. Just grab whole archive ‘lamboreventon_mods.rpf’ and move it to your working folder. There rename it same way as the car files, what means we would have ‘reaper_mods.rpf’.
Moving to the last location to extract data files:
dlc.rpf > data
From here we would need 4 files — vehicles.meta, handling.meta, carcols.meta and carvariations.meta. Move all 4 of them into your working folder and we have all files ready to use for replacing. In this moment you can right click on ‘dlc.rpf’ inside of OpenIV and click ‘Close archive’ as we don’t need it anymore.
Note: if mod don’t have tuning parts it lot of time don’t have carcols.meta file, but even if it have this file but don’t have any tuning, you don’t need it once mod don’t have own tuning parts. You would need it only in more advanced replacement where you want care about lights details or replacing emergency vehicles.
Second tricky thing that can happen’ to you in this location is that car would be missing handling.meta. In this case it is using any vanilla handling and we don’t need this file either. Third and probably last tricky scenario is that car is missing vehicles.meta which is most important file. What do we have to do now? In this case you would have there folder called ‘levels’ and inside it would be another folder named ‘gta5’ aaaand inside it would be our vehicles.meta.
Vanilla files locations
First of all if anyone don’t know meaning of vanilla I will explain it as I will be using it pretty often in tutorials. Vanilla files in computer software world in general means that files are without any customization. In our world of GTA it means they are original files from original game, not any moded files.
I will explain files and locations in same order as we was preparing files. First goes the vehicle model files, as we know now it’s ‘.yft’ files for model and ‘.ytd’ files for it’s textures. Using OpenIV search tool we can find vanilla Reaper files locations and we do it with ‘.yft’ file, so search for ‘reaper.yft’.
Vanilla files can be in 3 different locations types:
1. x64e.rpf > levels > gta5 > vehicles.rpf
2. update > x64 > dlcpacks > DLC_PATCH_NAME > dlc.rpf > x64 > levels > gta5 > vehicles > DLC_PATCH_NAME.rpf
3. update > x64 > dlcpacks > patchdayXXXX > dlc.rpf > x64e > levels > gta5 > vehicles.rpf
Most of the models are located in x64e. It’s because there are located all vehicles that was in first game version. Once Rockstar was making new and new updates every bigger update that added new models into game had it’s own DLC pack. These dlc packs have their specific names. For example our example model Reaper was released in game later in update called ‘Further Adventures in Finance and Felony’ which files was added in dlc of one of previous updates called ‘Executives and Other Criminals’ so name of dlcpack that we will be working with is ‘mpexecutive’.
Third option is any of the parchday’s dlc which are as well folders for dlc with new files. Or can we call it new? I think no, as these models was not added into game as new feature, but these are updated files once they improve any of old models. Why they do it like this? Well, think about it, how would be they able to delete your old ‘reaper.yft’ file and add a new one without pushing you to redownload whole game again? So this is why they do it by using patchday folders.
As you may notice already, this means all models in patchday all already in any other location as well as our Reaper which is already in ‘mpexecutive’ but it’s in ‘patchday13ng’ too. Take care because patchday locations are preferred over other to make sure your game load updated models. There is as well another possible location but it may appear only if you already used some mods packs as for example World of Variety, which customize any of the models or Rockstar updated Reaper meanwhile me writing and you reading this.
Again same as with the Rockstar, for mod creator it’s easier to make new folder with dlc archive where he put all customized models than write command for OIV ( automatic mod installation file ) for every single file of every single customized model. It as well have multiple usage reasons why it’s better for authors add vehicles this way. As these are listed as new dlc packs, it would be again preferred by the game over old locations. Keep this in mind and once your new model is not appearing in the game, this is most likely the reason.
Tuning parts can be again in 3 locations similar like with the model files locations:
1. x64i.rpf > levels > gta5 > vehiclemods
2. update > x64 > dlcpacks >DLC_PATCH_NAME > dlc.rpf > x64 > levels > DLC_PATCH_NAME > vehiclemods
3. update > x64 > dlcpacks > patchdayXXXX > dlc.rpf > x64 > levels > patchdayXXXX > vehiclemods
Tuning parts for vehicles located in ‘x64e.rpf’ are located always in archive ‘x64i.rpf’. For dlc packs it’s always same dlc folder and archive but from ‘levels’ folder you don’t go next thru ‘gta5’ folder but thru the folder with name of that exact dlc pack. For the patchday applies the same rule as with the models.
But as in our case, fact that model was customized and is located in any patchday doesn’t mean it’s tuning parts was customized as well. So tuning parts are in 1 location only same way as our Reaper’s which we found by searching for car name with added ‘_mods’ so we was searching for ‘reaper_mods’.
Meta files have in most cases 2 locations, one in ‘common.rpf’ and one in ‘update.rpf’. To make changes appear in game it’s enough to change just one located in ‘update.rpf’, but again we are going to change both, not just to see and experience it, but it’s good backup of your meta files for time of big game updates that change whole ‘update.rpf’. Anyway, you should have always backup of your old mods folder before doing any changes.
But in case you don’t have or delete it after update and forgot replace meta files (which happen’ to me on my beginnings), you have backed up your data in ‘common.rpf’.
I will write you now locations of all 4 types of meta files depending on vehicle models locations as these locations have connections, but I recommend you every time put name of that meta in the search and then just browse the results. So when you’re working on ‘vehicles.meta’ edits, even that you may know the exact location of file thanks to following tips, always use search button for ‘vehicles.meta’ and carefully browse the results.
Vehicles.meta for models located in ‘x64e.rpf’ are always in these 2 locations:
common.rpf > data > levels > gta5
update > update.rpf > common > data > levels > gta5
And for dlc models, it have sometimes just one of following locations, so don’t worry if you don’t find ‘update.rpf’ location, but search carefully anyway:
update > update.rpf > dlc_patch > DLC_PATCH_NAME > common > data > levels > gta5
update > x64 > dlcpacks > DLC_PATCH_NAME > dlc.rpf > common > data > levels > gta5
Handling.meta have a bit smaller addresses but in same locations, so for ‘x64e.rpf’ models it’s:
common.rpf > data
update > update.rpf > common > data
And for dlc models again applies rule that it may have just one of following location.
update > update.rpf > dlc_patch > DLC_PATCH_NAME > common > data
update > x64 > dlcpacks > DLC_PATCH_NAME > dlc.rpf > common > data
But in this time it happend in 90% of times as at time of writing this only 2 dlc packs have ‘update.rpf’ location.
Moving on last 2 data files which are ‘carcols’ and ‘carvariations’. These 2 files are always in the same location. That means ‘carvariations’ for our Reaper are in the same folder as ‘carcols’ for Reaper. Both ‘carcols’ and ‘carvariations’ have again 2 copies. But biggest difference which lot of time confuse people while replacing vehicles is that these files don’t end always as ‘.meta’.
For the models located in the ‘x64e.rpf’ it’s called as ‘carcols.ymt’ and ‘carvariations.ymt’ and they are located in following 2 locations:
update > update.rpf > x64 > data
x64a.rpf > data
Both ‘carcols.ymt’ and ‘carvariations.ymt’ have one copy in both locations. And for the dlc vehicles we have ‘carcols.meta’ and ‘carvariations.meta’ in 2 following locations:
update > update.rpf > dlc_patch > DLC_PATCH_NAME > common > data
update > x64 > dlcpacks > DLC_PATCH_NAME > dlc.rpf > common > data
Again it may happend that exact dlc don’t have copy of these files in one of locations, but I think ‘carcols.meta’ is always in both location and only ‘carvariations.meta’ may be only in ‘x64’ location, so it’s ok, but search carefully.
That’s all for today as keeping whole replacing process in one topic would be pretty big and heavy book and not just simple tutorial. I believe that now you at least understand how are locations connected and what is the system in their organizing so next parts of this tutorial should be much, much easier for you.