Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?
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I noticed there has been a GTA 4 vehicle mod installer as well as one for GTA SA, I want to ask why there hasn't been one for GTA V? Because the installation can be PTSD inducing & convoluted. Not to mention you'll have to repeat that process again once an update rolls out. So why hasn't a vehicle mod installer been made for GTA V? Is there something in the game preventing that? And if so what is it?
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@MobWulff said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
So why hasn't a vehicle mod installer been made for GTA V? Is there something in the game preventing that? And if so what is it?
Nothing in the game prevents this, only things outside the game are the problem.
Pick any (or all) of these:
- Lack of information
- Lack of documentation
- Lack of communication
- Lack of cooperation
- Lack of motivation
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Because it's a total pain to go through the archive decryption process. Unless writing your own Rage Wrapper or asking OpenIV team to release an API, you simply can't write anything. Well, there were a few attempts in the past, if I remember correctly but turned out the author stopped providing support.
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@xquist I have an addon tool that will literally create an addon in less than thirty seconds but the problem I have, is that the rpf library creates an unstable rpf file, that corrupts itself the minute you try and change anything in it. Yet the author of the library insists that the code I am using is correct.
I got a morsel of help from him and then he posted that he didn't know if he could be motivated to work out if his library was causing the problem... so that was that. I got angry, had a rant and I suspect that ended that story. It took me around 8 months to get about 4 posts worth of information out of him... I have no patience with things like that. I don't know what motivates someone to write something intended to be used but to also be so reluctant to give people the information required to use it.
I tried to write my own rpf creator but it's beyond my skill level... I just don't understand it. OpenIV isn't written in a language that has an API anyone else can use and I don't even know if they'd share it if it was.
I don't know why but with some of the information, you feel like you need to put people through the torture sequence in the game to get anything out of them... and I just don't understand that with a modding community that should be able to thrive on shared information.
The more people that know the answers, the more people can provide the solutions to the problems a lot of people are having. But without a working and stable rpf library, pretty much nothing can be done with regards to the game files.
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Oh, ok... I thought it was called an OIV file...
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OpenIV is closed-source, so there is no way you can get from them.
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@LeeC2202 Because they moved on something else. I remember back in 2005 I was working on my own hook for the refractor's engine (if you've ever played BF2/BF2142, it basically allowed to recreate custom gamemodes, play with global vars, unpack archives, etc) and at that time I was also working on separate mods for the game. Turns out in the end, I wasn't able to release the source code completely as I was overwhelmed with the amout of bugs while working on the separate mods. At that time, only a few people were interested into it, so I really thought what I was trying to achieve was not worth it, knowing that the next game patch was going to break it anyways (1.5GB patch files striking..)
Though, I completely agree with your last sentence but unfortunately the modding scene on GTA5 is still too competitive, it's not even able to have a stable community - just look at how low the GTA V Coding section dropped so far. Not to mention the current community apertheid between the .WHITE team or .BLACK
Anyways, situation like this are not pure product of fate, it should in contrary push at least some people to explore the world of reverse engineering and still spend efforts.
@cyberzone2 Were you recently promoted to the rank of Captain?
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@xquist
Captain? I don't understand.
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People can use OpenIV's OIV package format to create automatic installations for all kind of mods not only for vehicles.
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@GooD-NTS said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
People can use OpenIV's OIV package format to create automatic installations for all kind of mods not only for vehicles.
Maybe, but unfortunately I simply don't have the time to do anything such as modding & I don't know the first thing about it. I simply think the installation of vehicle mods is a very painful traumatic experience, and you have to repeat that process over again after a new update for the game rolls out.
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@MobWulff It is NOT a painful process at all - dragging and dropping 4 files into an archive takes all of but a minute to do.
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@MobWulff honestly i dont understand the big deal with installing car mods. Its the easiest thing to install next to installing plugins or scripts. You create a folder throw the dlc.rpf you downloaded into it update the dlclist.xml file and your done. When the game updates you dont have to reinstall any of your mods unless its in update.rpf and you reinstall the newly updated scripthook v. if you are having to reinstall all your mods after every new update sounds like you arent doing the mods folder method.
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@eshenk Have you ever built an addon pack comprised of multiple addons and then had to update a single car in that addon pack?
Installing replace vehicles is easy, installing a single addon is easy but when it comes to actually adding cars in a way that the game is happy with, it's not just a case of dragging 4 files into a folder.
vehiclelayouts.meta has 20 individual sections in the file and any addon could use any number of sections in that file. All those sections have to be combined in the right way, and have to be 100% error free with regards to XML validation.
And then there's the addons that have tuning parts, that have to have values changed to ensure that they work with the ones you already have.
@Willief23 said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
if you are having to reinstall all your mods after every new update sounds like you arent doing the mods folder method.
Or they are using replace vehicles and they have been updated in the latest patch rendering their previous latest versions redundant.
It's all not as simple as is being made out. There are many factors that can complicate this and leave people scratching their heads. And as can be seen here, not many of those are being considered when people are telling the OP how simple it all is.
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@LeeC2202 Sorry, I didn't consider people who go the add-on route, LOL. I just drag and drop, and done, sometimes I also need to make some edits to vehicles.met, handling or carcols.
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@LeeC2202 See... you're saying that whenever you try to use OpenIV with your created rpf, it corrupts itself... at least thats what I understood.
So, what's the use of using OpenIV? Like there is nothing you need to do with OpenIV (except for editing dlclist.xml... oh well) so... dont open it with OpenIV. Make sure your users don't too.
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@Willief23 Off-topic, but could use some advice concerning values to alter in gameconfig.
I have finally determined the cause for the pop-in, which is RDE. When I drive regularly through ANY area of the map, there is NO pop-in to speak of, sometimes I see some distant things like props or parts of buildings pop-in, but it is really, really quick. But....when I get in trouble, and RDE gets going, especially when I am around Del Perro, the pop-in get's insane, entire streets with no textures, missing buildings, with parts hanging mid-air. I am under budget on vRam by about 3.5 Gb. The only thing left for me to believe is that there must be some values in gameconfig to tell the engine, reserve x amount of resources for such and such. I don't think there is anything wrong with RDE's gameconfig, but mine needs special attention because I have increased ped and vehicular traffic densities far above vanilla.
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@AHK1221 So you're saying.. let people create addons but then never let them add a livery or change a texture? I can see that being a popular choice.
How would you feel if you downloaded an addon with full livery support but then got told "Oh, don't make any changes to this addon in OpenIV or it will break"?
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@LeeC2202 Make that an option in your tool. (I don't know if you can edit YTD files with the library, if you can, boom problem solved)
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@AHK1221 No it's not boom problem solved, because you can't dictate how people edit the files.
OpenIV exists and people use it. You can't tell people "You can't use OpenIV because my tool is writing broken files" and get them to accept that.
You don't fix a problem with band-aids and then expect people to leave those band-aids alone. All it would take is for one user to change one file and the whole rpf file would be screwed. You absolutely cannot release anything that builds data files with that level of fragility.
I also wouldn't trust anything edited with this library to be honest. Go on the OpenIV page and you will see issues with other file types created with the same library, that are causing problems with OpenIV.
It would be completely irresponsible of me to release any tool that has the potential to cause data corruption, when a file is being edited outside the tool, by the default programme used for editing that file type... i.e. OpenIV.
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@LeeC2202 Your choice, I still think people would appreciate it.
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@LeeC2202 @AHK1221 im glad we can edit rpf files especially car models. I have gone through multiple car addons and fixed texture issues. I have had to fix alot of tail light colors that were too pink or orange looking and change them to red color. Fix too bright of dials by reducing down brightness by 50-80% and increasing contrast some as well. A good example the 2016 chevy ss has white tail lights and white indicators. Had to change the tail lights to red and change the front indicators to orange. Some cars have coronas in the wrong spot which you can edit in carcols.meta. You can improve interior of cars by replacing textures with better ones or changing colors.
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@MobWulff said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
So why hasn't a vehicle mod installer been made for GTA V? Is there something in the game preventing that?
A vehicle mod installer would be easy, IF one of these conditions were true:
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Modders got their DLC meta data in order. They very often don't. Take this Pagani for instance. As I told the author, you can't just have a single <Item> in carvariations. It must be embedded, like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <CVehicleModelInfoVariation> <variationData> <Item> .... </Item> </variationData> </CVehicleModelInfoVariation>
And yet, on his next update, the standalone <Item> is still there. No automated vehicle installer can ever hope to accommodate for that kind of stupidity (no offense). And if you think that's the worst I've seen, you'd be wrong.
And 1 error in your meta files (usually an XML error) can cripple half your DLC.- Car modkit ID's were always valid. They aren't, and are currently still an issue (at least for now). So, at the very least, some minimal, manual verification will need to take place.
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@MobWulff said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
Maybe, but unfortunately I simply don't have the time to do anything such as modding & I don't know the first thing about it. I simply think the installation of vehicle mods is a very painful traumatic experience, and you have to repeat that process over again after a new update for the game rolls out.
I mean if mod authors will use OIV packages more often users will not have to install anything manually.
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@GooD-NTS said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
I mean if mod authors will use OIV packages more often users will not have to install anything manually.
Many mod authors can't even tell users to put the files in the correct place, so nobody in their right mind is going to trust them to make OIV installations.
Have a look how many mods there are that are still telling people to replace files in the original x64?.rpf files, that have been superseded in at least one patchday folder. Have a look at how many vehicle mods are still telling people to make changes to extratitleupdate.meta.
What is going to happen when that advice ends up in a one-click solution? The answer is a lot of people are going to have a mods folder full of useless 2GB rpf files and cars that don't appear anywhere. Or they will end up with modified game files if they click the wrong button by mistake.
All increased OIV usage would mean, is people would spend more time extracting everything from the OIV, so they could find out where things are really supposed to go and then doing it manually. Or to find out how many cars are really in that single car addon pack, that just happens to contain 6... or contains 1 but has the meta data for 15.
OIV might be convenient but it's not trustworthy. You don't just dump an unknown quantity into your mods folder and hope for the best. Automating the installation of unreliable data, is a disaster waiting to happen.
And then we have the updates, which might add a new folder that supersedes existing data versions, yet the OIV will install to the old location anyway... because it doesn't know any different.
And that's without even considering them in their relevance to this topic...
Can an OIV install an addon into an existing dlc.rpf and merge all the xml and meta files correctly, to allow the user to create addon packs made from multiple vehicles?
Can it install a replace vehicle into your mods folder as an addon?
These are the problems users have with vehicles and these are the problems that need solutions.
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@LeeC2202 said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
OIV might be convenient but it's not trustworthy. You don't just dump an unknown quantity into your mods folder and hope for the best. Automating the installation of unreliable data, is a disaster waiting to happen.
So, then automatic vehicle installer will be the same, no?
@LeeC2202 said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
Can an OIV install an addon into an existing dlc.rpf and merge all the xml and meta files correctly, to allow the user to create addon packs made from multiple vehicles?
Yes, if the package created that way.
@LeeC2202 said in Why hasn't there been a vehicle installer?:
Can it install a replace vehicle into your mods folder as an addon?
I guess no, because this scenario is limited to vehicles only and OIV Package Installer is universal solution for all kind of mods.
It will install package into mods folder if user says so, but it can't guess that you what something that mod author is not meant.
