Masked Marauder

Scorpion... now it seems slightly even more familiar. But I never played VCS and it came along after. Thanks MrLx2.

Yeah, I am fairly certain that I already mentioned that. Gee, thanks.

"Buyer Beware" I suppose. Sure there are many many games that are polished turds, but a little research can save a gamer from wasting money on them. I would think that online communities and discussions, such as TGTAP, would be better places to gain insight about whether or not a game is a "best" or a "bust" before purchasing - if they are available. Game "reviewers" are almost certainly going to be somewhat leery of being overly critical of the developers that basically give them a purpose for their existence. Worst case scenario is that you can always take the "busts" to a resale shop and get hosed... again, but at least you will recoup SOME of your money.

I opened the assassin models from the beginning cinematic in an editor and noticed that two of the three looked a lot like Tommy and that at least one of the weapons that they used was different from the standard ones. After making a player mod with the assassin that resembles Tommy the most, I thought that it would be kind of neat to make another mod that inserts the weapon into the game somewhere as well. It kind of looks like an mp5 but it is quite a bit smaller. It looks vaguely familiar though, and I can't help but think that I have seen this weapon SOMEWHERE before. That little hand grip towards the business end of it stands out the most. Does anyone have any insight about this currently unidentified smg? Was it used in another game, is there a name for it? It does not keep me awake at night wondering, but it would be kind of nice to know what it is, even if it is really just nothing at all.

Hey EiNoRaS. I did the race twice and it looked like this: Hope it helps.

There seems to be several recent topics about this SAMI thing and not being able to uninstall mods. I tried it out once for a short while when I was a noob to modding and noticed that it had a tendency to mess with things that I wanted left alone. So I ended up using it to locate things that I wanted to edit and then closing it without saving any changes. Then I would make my changes manually. In the end I ended up just using it for the cheats.

Well that would be a shame because you would miss out on a lot of cool stuff. Install mods manually with something like IMG Tool and you will have much fewer problems.

SA vwfypro > VC wfypr This is one that I do not think that I ever uploaded anywhere, partially because that fur coat thing was a pain in the ass to work with and partially because I was never sure what to do with her to make her a bit more sexy. Gave this little number a bit more exposure up front. Smoothed out the lumpiness in the model. Turned out fairly well I think, but have not tried her out in the game yet.

If you are using SAMI there is a similar thread here that might help: http://www.thegtaplace.com/forums/topic/26575-modding-problems/

These missions are kind of tough. I could offer some pointers if you wish.

Here is one of the "Tommy" assassins as a player model: http://www.thegtaplace.com/downloads/f5833-tommy-assassin

I just noticed yesterday that 2 of the 3 cut scene assassins are actually Tommy models with different textures. The other is Gonzalez.

I never used SAMI for installing mods, primarily for that very reason. If you have copies of the original DFFs and TXDs somewhere I would try using IMGTool or something similar to restore them to the IMG archive manually. If you do not have any copies, or SAMI did not create any copies (I would think that it would have to somewhere in order to uninstall - maybe that is the problem), then try searching the net to find some. If you can not find any, then maybe somebody can send them to you. Hope this helps.

It has been so long that I can not remember how difficult certain missions were; although "The Driver", "The Job", and "Checkpoint Charlie" certainly were. One that stands out in my mind was "G-Spotlight" because the damn bike would blow up from all of that jumping, usually only about one or two jumps from the end. That and overshooting a landing and ending up on the pavement. A side mission that took a lot of tries to complete was that "PCJ Playground". I remember missing a landing, or crashing into a building or a pole, or missing a sharp turn and falling off lots of times. The worst was at the end when you have to launch at just the right speed and land on top of a building without over or under shooting it.

The best part about that is how the cops pay no attention to gangs walking around with pistols, uzis, and shotguns blasting anything that they wish to but there is hell to pay if you should bump into one of their squad cars. One of the major things that just wrecks the game for me.

VC Cut Scene Mercedes > ? Okay, maybe it was THIS cut scene model of Mercedes that had the vertex grouping/bone alignment all screwed up; I can not remember. Either way, they have both been re-redone. The default model was another example of the folks at R* thinking that belly buttons and boobs are only three inches apart. Well, maybe sometimes they ARE, but not with my models. Redid that circus tent skirt of hers, redid her hair, added that '80s style hanging belt thing, skimpified her clothes a bit, gave her a much higher polygon count (default: 138Kb, mine: 744Kb), smoothed the faces, repositioned the bones, and opened her mouth ever so slightly. Did some retexturing and remapping, like her funked up eyebrows, and probably some other things that I can not remember. I am really glad that I was able to pick up wherever I had left off and salvage this one.

Can you compare the corrupted save file size to the size of a working previously saved file? Hopefully not to far back in the storyline? Then you at least get an idea of much data was lost and if it is worth the effort to try and salvage it. There may be so much missing data that the game can not even begin to load enough information to tell you that it is corrupt. Other than that there is no other help that I can suggest.

VC Cut Scene Mercedes 2 > VC ? Dug up this high definition ultra-mega super-duper curvaceous overhaul of a cut-scene Mercedes model. Not sure if I should include this one with this mod or with a different one. I am thinking that this model is shapely enough to rival Candy Suxxx. This model has had EVERYTHING redone. I abandoned it for a while because I thought that I overdid it with subdividing the faces and her upper body did not twist around very nicely without making a mess. Now that I am brave enough to reposition bones and joints without screwing up the entire mesh she is much much better now. If I remember correctly, I gave her different a different skin texture from another model. Unfortunately her face does not match the greatest, I will still work at that. I really want to remove the darker colors that make her look like she has five o'clock shadow or something. Her dress is shorter, skimpier, and it looks like she put it on with a paint roller. It really hugs her form I guess. Redid her hair to appear a bit more... well, less like a mushroom cap or something. Spiked her heels a bit more. I believe that I touched up the texture as well; such as her lips, eyebrows, fingernails, stockings, and some other things. Yup, a lot work to overhaul a Mercedes.

SA HFYBE > VC hfybe Probably the most famous... basketballs in GTA, until IV at least. She is always one of the first characters that I attempt to convert for some reason. Anyway the default model has her with kind of a tank ass in my opinion and not a very trim waist. Plus her right boob is kind of deflated on one side. So I chopped it off, duplicated and mirrored the left one, and replaced it. Never liked the two ponytail thing either, although I am sure that they have... uses. Put her shades on her bikini top string as kind of an attention grabbing thing, although sporting pumpkins that big she probably does not need it - especially with the CWIs that I added.

SA Shfypro > VC hfypr Always liked this model, but she was a mess... especially her clothes. Her waistline was not exactly very shapely either. Her skirt is now more like a tight mini-mini skirt.

S.A.W. II - San Andreas Women Conversion. After a bit of a hiatus from modding, I am finally getting back to the second version of SAW. This mod converts the hotter females from San Andreas to Vice City. Even though the meshes from SA are kind of a mess I prefer the textures over VC any day. I have always had the impression that most of the VC females have kind of a cartoon clown look to them and the ones from SA are much more realistic. Some of these models were included in my mod S.A.W. 1.33 Manual Addon, but they are being redone as well. This conversion is lot of work, an awful lot of work. Rather than keep at it nonstop like I usually do until I get sick of working at it, I am now attempting to pace the progress a little slower. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible for me to pick up where I left off the last time and salvage any nearly completed models so I have started over from scratch. All female characters will have a completely reworked mesh with higher definition and less "mess". They will also have much better curves... in all of the right places. You can not really appreciate how non-sexy the default models are until you have opened them up in a 3D editor. The conversion process involves re-rigging, adjusting and rotating some of the bones, removing duplicate vertexes, some texture editing, subdividing and smoothing the faces, reshaping the meshes, reassigning vertex groups, centering, positioning, testing, and whatever else comes to mind. So I started this topic to show what I have finished or nearly finished so far and to get feedback, input, suggestions, etc from anyone who wished to bother. Many thanks to those of you who do. Just to be clear, the game default models are on the left in the screen shots. The reworked ones are on the right. Masked Marauder

What editor do you plan to use? I am a Blender-er myself. Most software sites like Blender.org and Autodesk.com have tutorials and/or forums linked right to their sites. Plus there are modding help topics right in the TGTAP forums. I edit mostly female character models myself and have only looked for help in the forums or tutorials a handful of times. If you are thinking of giving Blender a try I can provide you with a list of what you will need; although it has been said that Blender is not very "beginner friendly".

Being chased at high speed by the country cops, losing control, crashing into the water works building and flipping upside down, and before I even had a chance to exit the car the "Busted" screen appears and the cop is standing over me with gun drawn - like he just popped out of the fast moving cop car right on top of me. The most ridiculous "magic bust" that has ever happened to me.

Nice reply to my mini-rant, which I apologize for. A good example of how to NOT get an admin spanking because of hotheadedness. Anyway, play and explore the game to accomplish what you are after; you will get your moneys worth at least.

Banned? No. And I am not looking forward to a first. Yet I must take into consideration that over the last... 3 or 4 years I have been more of a mod author than poster. Have only been posting with any consistency over the last 4 or 5 months or so while on hiatus from modding. I DID abruptly leave one site though, mostly because I got tired of the automated server yanking some of my mods for no logical reason. I had to practically DEMAND the site admin to remove my uploads, yet there was still a chance of reconciliation at that point. Then the admin went on the offensive, after previously stating that how he would "like to resolve the issue", so there was no longer any chance of me hanging around that place any more. After having some mildly amusing fun reading the admins obvious changes in tone to my countermeasure responses, I saw that everything had finally been removed and never responded again. I should post the messages somewhere that I still have, kind of predictable and funny really.