best way to find and replace billboard textures?
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I've done it successfully, but I want a better way to locate the billboards. As of now I have to guess and brute force check a bunch of files in OpenIV. I would love a tool that allowed me to see the name of the texture in-game. I found something called Map Info Tool that is meant to do this, but it does not work (likely too old).
https://www.gta5-mods.com/scripts/map-info-toolAny ideas? Is there a C# function I can call that will return the texture as a string in-game? Something like this? Or a better way to find the textures than a fair amount of guess work?
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@prismspecs
Use Codewalker (get it from <that discord link, the one on this site is ~2.5 years out of date).
For what you want to do, it will be as good as being in the game, & it's easy enough to use for stuff like this.
Use it in combination with OpenIV & you'll get a pretty quick workflow out of it.Instructions:
- Launch Codewalker
- Hit the [<<] box (top right)
- You can find the Keyboard Controls in '[Tools]' > 'Options...' > 'Controls' tab (use right-mouse to select things after ticking the 'Mouse select (right click)' tickbox in the 'Selection' tab, box turns green once something is selected & also Shift can be used in combination with WSAD to move faster).
- Follow the numbers/instructions in this pic to find a texture:
- The pic above is an example of finding a texture in a '.ytd'.
- Sometimes textures can be embedded in a '.ydr' or a '.ydd' also (a '.ydd' is really just a collection of '.ydr's, a drawable dictionary).
- To find a '.ydr', you'll find it's name right at the start of the Archetype line ('hw1_02_bld3x' in this case) or right at the bottom in the 'Name' line (covered by OpenIV Texture Viewer window in that^ pic)
- If the entity is part of a '.ydd', you'll find the '.ydd's name in the 'Drawable Dict' line (if not, the line will just say '0').
- Once you have any names you need, a quick Ctrl+F3 search in OpenIV to check the file will confirm whether it contains any billboard textures that you need to edit.
Finding Billboard LOD/SLOD1/SLOD2/SLOD3 Textures:
If you want to find the LOD/SLOD1/SLOD2/SLOD3 etc textures for a certain billboard, you can use the 'View' tab to force a max lod, & then back in the 'Selection' tab, follow the same process as above to find those textures.
Extra Info:
With SLOD3 you will be dealing with entities that are whole city blocks or areas. You'll need to move back from them to be able to see the arrows to move them about.Also, any changes you make moving things around are non-destructive. You can hit Ctrl+Z to step back through changes you have made & even if you don't, the game will be untouched & everything will be back to normal once you restart Codewalker.
Hopefully that explains the basics of what you need to know.
Give me a shout if you have any questions/issues etc
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WOW thank you this is incredibly helpful.
Is it possible to reload the replaced textures without restarting the game?
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@prismspecs said in best way to find and replace billboard textures?:
Is it possible to reload the replaced textures without restarting the game?
Nah, not that I know of.