Chris82's San Andreas Texturing Tutorial (UPDATED)
(For Textures other then skins)
Hi, I'm Chris82, and I love modding GTA games. There
are some great tools out right now and they allow you to insert
your own textures into the game. If you are completely new to GTA modding
and have no clue what you are doing, see below for a big
explanation on what my terminology is for this. This tutorial
will explain every detail on how to mod texture files.
A n00bs introduction:
If you are new to Modding, let me break down how things work.
First of all, when you install any 3D GTA game on your PC,
it is installed in a folder. That folder contains many other folders and files,
all of which make up your game. When I say texturing, I really mean
the pictures, roads, signs, buildings, cars, etc... And by that, I really
don't mean the actual 3D object, but I mean the stuff on it. Like the rust on a car,
the color of a light, what a sign says on a building, the color of CJ's skin, etc... All of the
models in GTA have textures, but not all textures have models. For example,
a 3D TV set in CJ's house is a model and texture, but the clouds high up in
the sky are just textures. To make these textures, R* either had to go into
the real world and take pictures of something for a texture, or make a texture
in a graphics program, or do both for one texture. Because they are
so easy to create, anyone with enough skill and creativity can do it. Now, on to the tutorial!
The computer you'll need:
At least a 1GHz Celeron Processor (To run GTA games and your favorite graphics application)
At least 384 MB of RAM (Again to run GTA games and graphics apps)
At least a 32mb Video Card
A large hard drive to fit your games, mods, mod applications, and utilities
The Tools you'll need:
Digital Camera (Optional)
Scanner (Optional)
Internet Connection (Duh)
San Andreas (DUH!!!!)
MS Paint
Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (Optional, but these really help and are needed in some areas)
Creativity
Time
IMG Tool 2.0
TXD Workshop 3.5+
Ok, let's get started. First, you'll need to find the texture you want to mod. If you know
the texture in game (the silver TV for example) then you're halfway there. Now you just need to find
the texture in the IMG files. Navigate to your San Andreas install (Usually C:/Program Files/Rockstar Games/
GTA San Andreas) and right-click the models folder. Then click properties and uncheck the box that says "Read Only."
Click ok. Your properties window should look like this if you did it right:
Now, open up IMG Tool 2.0 and in that program, open up either gta3.img or gta_int.img in your SanAn data folder.
If your texture is in an interior, a safe house for example, you want gta_int.img. If it's anything else, then you want gta3.img. Wait until they open and then you'll have a bunch of stuff show up in IMG Tool 2.0. Now the hard part, you need to find the textures you want in this enormous file.
This is where you need time. Let's say you opened up gta_int and want to put something on one of CJ's TV's.
Click find in IMG Tool and type in "cj_tv.txd" without the quotes. After it is highlighted, right click it then
click extract. Extract to a folder you'll remember, like MyTXDs for example. Then open up TXD Workshop but DON'T close IMG Tool. Open the TXD you just extracted in TXD Workshop. A bunch of pictures (textures) should come up.
There are many TV's in the game so pick the one you want. I wanted the silver one so I decided to edit it. Once you have the one you want, click it once to highlight it and then click export. If you have Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, export it as a .TGA.
If you only have Paint, extract as a .bmp:
Extract it in the same folder as your TXDs for quickness. Open up your
new file in your graphics program and edit as you see fit. If you're using Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, after you edit as you want, merge all layers. In Photoshop to do this, click Layers and then click "MERGE VISIBLE." Remember to merge after selecting the first layer of image (original layer, usually called "Background" or "Layer 0" in Photoshop. After all your layers are merged into one, press "Ctrl+S" without the quotes. The file should save without any further crap from your graphics program. As for you Paint users, after you edit your file, just click File>Save.
After your file is edited, you want to see it in game, right? Ok, well, bring back TXD Workshop with your TXD
still open. Select the file you edited and click Import. Double-click the file you edited and it should now be a part of the TXD. If the file you are editing has an alpha, you must export, edit, and import that as fit too.
Now, click Save TXD, and that's it. Go back to IMG Tool 2.0. The TXD file you extracted should still be selected.
Delete the TXD file in the archive and add your modified one. You don't have to rebuild the archive. Fire up SA and have a look at your new texture. That's all there is to it.
Before:
After:
Textures from the Internet/Your Camera:
You may want to use a real life picture you've taken or found on the web as a texture in SA. It's easy.
Open up your real texture in Photoshop/PSP or Paint. All textures in SA are a given size such as 128x128, 256x256, 64x64, etc.... and combinations of those.
In TXD Workshop, get the size of the texture you're replacing. For example, let's say your texture in TXD Workshop shows up as 256x256. That is what the image needs to be resized to. To do this in Photoshop, click on Image and then Image Size. You must uncheck "Contrain Proportions" or it will change the size. In Paint, click Image, then click attributes, then change the values.
Make the image the correct size. Be careful, Paint users, as it will cut off to the upper left of the image. (It will only do that in Paint) Remeber, kids, ALL TEXTURES MUST BE DIVISIBLE BY 2!
Save the pic as a 24-Bit .bmp and make sure it shares the name of the texture file. Not the same name as the
.TXD itself, but the file inside the TXD you are replacing. Import and put into the IMG file just as with homemade textures described above.
That's it. That's all it takes to make San Andreas a state of your own. Did I miss anything? Want me to put something in?
Comments are welcome. Please give comments. Thanks, and I hope this tutorial helped you.
NEW: How to find the texture you want to mod:
Until recently with SA, you had to guess and check the name of the txd file you needed to mod. Well no longer! Thanks to Steve-m's map tool you can use this to find what txd file you need. To use Steve-m's tool, download it, extract to your desktop, then open notepad. Type your Sa directory (usually C:/Program Files/Rockstar Games/GTA San Andreas) on the first line. Save to the desktop and name the file "Games.cfg" Open the map tool and press F1. After it loads, navigate to the area of SA where the texture you want to mod is. Once you find the sign or whatever it is you want to mod, zoom really close to it and right click the object a couple times. The maptool will tell you at the top the name of the txd file you need to mod. Now just follow the steps above by finding the TXD file and editing it.
Q&A:
Q: When I try to save something in TXD Workshop, I get a stream read error.
A: You either don't have version 3.5 or above, or you used a .bmp in Photoshop or didn't save the right size
Q: IMG Tool Doesn't open the IMG files
A: You need IMG Tool 2.0
Q: The texture saves right in TXD Workshop, but when I close TXD Workshop, I get an error
A: That's ok, I don't know what causes this error, but it doesn't affect the txds you made
Q: Your tuts suck, will you kindly go die?
A: No, will you kindly go screw yourself? If you don't like my tutorial, don't read it, I never forced you to.
Q: I edited the TXD and saved and everything, but when I look in game, the texture hasn't changed. What gives?
A: You edited the wrong TXD. If it didn't save right in the image, the game would crash.
Q: How do I know which format to export to?
A: It depends on the graphics program.
Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro: Export as TGA
MS Paint: Export as BMP
Q: What about clothes?
A: See Oshi's skinning tutorial.
Q: When do you update this?
A: When I have something new or useful to put in.
Last Update: Jun 28, 2005
April 19, 2006
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� Copyleft 2005 Chris82-Some Rights Reserved. You may not use this tut on your site.
