With the cars that have a vehicles.meta file that you're to replace, what is actually happening? Let's say I have two cars and I install Car A, install Car A's vehicles.meta file, then go install Car B, and install Car B's meta file. Does it replace the actual file or is it just appending it's own data to it? If it replaces it then I don't see the point. That would mean you can only use 1 car that utilizes a custom vehicles.meta file.

11 minutes ago, GunnDawg said:

With the cars that have a vehicles.meta file that you're to replace, what is actually happening? Let's say I have two cars and I install Car A, install Car A's vehicles.meta file, then go install Car B, and install Car B's meta file. Does it replace the actual file or is it just appending it's own data to it? If it replaces it then I don't see the point. That would mean you can only use 1 car that utilizes a custom vehicles.meta file.

 

When you replace over a vehicles.meta, or any file for that matter, the new file replaces it entirely.   There are some vehicles that come with a vehicles.meta but they only have a single line in them.  Ideally, if the vehicle has a custom meta line, you are supposed to extract your vehicles.meta and replace over the line that the new one uses.

 

For example:

 

Say you download a new POLICE2, which is a Tahoe.  This Tahoe comes with its own meta line.   You would go into this custom meta, and copy the custom meta for the Tahoe.

 

Next, in OpenIV, go to your vehicles.meta  (mods-->update-->update-->common-->data-->levels-->gta 5).

 

Extract this to your desktop and open it.

 

Now find the line for "POLICE2" and in its place paste the new POLICE2 meta line you copied.

 

You may need to change the new line's modelName, txdName, and gameName to match the slot you want it in.

Ah ok, good to know. So I'm supposed to be manually adding to or editing that file, rather than just copying over it, oops! I'll need to pull a backup one now and go through and make corrections, though all my cars seem to work fine, and all I've been doing is replacing that meta, lord knows what's in it at this point. If it's just a single few lines then probably not much.

1 hour ago, GunnDawg said:

Ah ok, good to know. So I'm supposed to be manually adding to or editing that file, rather than just copying over it, oops! I'll need to pull a backup one now and go through and make corrections, though all my cars seem to work fine, and all I've been doing is replacing that meta, lord knows what's in it at this point. If it's just a single few lines then probably not much.

 

Some mod authors are different.  Some will include the exact same meta that you have, just with some proper edits for their vehicles, while some will just include a vehicles.meta that just has the one single line in it.  You usually need to check first to see what you want to do.

It may be confusing at first, but as you gain more experience, adding to/modifying the files becomes easier.

Also, taking your time installing Mods is of extreme importance. I've learned this the hard way...

p.s., I wish that Mod Makers only included the necessary lines, not the whole file.

35 minutes ago, PhillBellic said:

p.s., I wish that Mod Makers only included the necessary lines, not the whole file.

 

The problem is, and I guarantee you this will happen,  if the mod makers name the files vehicles.meta, people will just copy and paste that meta with only a single line into their game and well-la, now they don't have any meta lines for most of the vehicles in the game.

What exactly does that particular meta file do for the vehicles anyways? I have 4 addon cars at the moment and 3 of them had .meta files that I just copied over. Of course I have an original backup of that file, but all 3 cars seem to work fine.

@GunnDawg lots of things. What kind of ped driving, handling, window tint, dirt level, why kind of car it is ie emergency or regular car. I can go on forever. 

Its a really important file. One faulty line can make the game crash instantly. I bet kallus can explain it better :)

5 minutes ago, Kalleboston said:

@GunnDawg lots of things. What kind of ped driving, handling, window tint, dirt level, why kind of car it is ie emergency or regular car. I can go on forever. 

Its a really important file. One faulty line can make the game crash instantly. I bet kallus can explain it better :)

 

I'm curious why those 3 cars work without fault then, as far as I can tell anyways, installing one, pasting over .meta, installing the next, pasting over the meta, by car 3 the first 2 should be invalid, no?

@GunnDawg Because they all use the default slot names and the creator has probably thought about the handling and such. That’s my guess :)

6 hours ago, Kallus Rourke said:

 

The problem is, and I guarantee you this will happen,  if the mod makers name the files vehicles.meta, people will just copy and paste that meta with only a single line into their game and well-la, now they don't have any meta lines for most of the vehicles in the game.

All the more reason for there to be no 'vehicles.meta' file (etc), and instead have the entries contained in the Readme/Installation Guide. :)

Man this is frustrating. I only have 4 addon cars so I didn't expect this to be as much of a pain as it is but these cars are not including ONLY the part of the .meta you need to replace, they're including the entire vehicles.meta file, I have no clue which part I should be copying out of it into the actual .meta file.

28 minutes ago, GunnDawg said:

Man this is frustrating. I only have 4 addon cars so I didn't expect this to be as much of a pain as it is but these cars are not including ONLY the part of the .meta you need to replace, they're including the entire vehicles.meta file, I have no clue which part I should be copying out of it into the actual .meta file.

 

Honestly, don't bother with the vehicles.meta the authors provide.  Unless you're super OCD about things, using the vehicles.meta of the POLICE slot for add-on law enforcement vehicles will work flawlessly.  All you need to change in the meta is the name of the vehicle (which includes the gameName, txdName, and, modelName) the handlingid, and the audionamehash to match that of your add-on car.

27 minutes ago, Kallus Rourke said:

 

Honestly, don't bother with the vehicles.meta the authors provide.  Unless you're super OCD about things, using the vehicles.meta of the POLICE slot for add-on law enforcement vehicles will work flawlessly.  All you need to change in the meta is the name of the vehicle (which includes the gameName, txdName, and, modelName) the handlingid, and the audionamehash to match that of your add-on car.

 

I think I've managed to manage to merge the 4 meta files together correctly by just copy/pasting the entire <Item> block for the given slot name (POLICE, POLICE2, etc, etc.). However I'm not really sure how to test that it actually worked. I can spawn all 4 of the cars I modified and all of their ELS features seem to work, but does that mean I did it correctly? I assume even if you messed the vehicles.meta file up that you would still be able to spawn the vehicles, so that might not be the best way to test that I did this correctly.

Edited November 11, 20178 yr by GunnDawg

6 minutes ago, GunnDawg said:

 

I think I've managed to manage to merge the 4 meta files together correctly by just copy/pasting the entire <Item> block for the given slot name (POLICE, POLICE2, etc, etc.). However I'm not really sure how to test that it actually worked. I can spawn all 4 of the cars I modified and all of their ELS features seem to work, but does that mean I did it correctly? I assume even if you messed the vehicles.meta file up that you would still be able to spawn the vehicles, so that might not be the best way to test that I did this correctly.

 

If you messed up the vehicles.meta, the game would crash at loading.  If the vehicles spawn and work fine, you did it correctly. :)

Just now, Kallus Rourke said:

 

If you messed up the vehicles.meta, the game would crash at loading.  If the vehicles spawn and work fine, you did it correctly. :)

 

Very well. Thanks again Kallus. You're the real MVP here ;)

3 minutes ago, GunnDawg said:

 

Very well. Thanks again Kallus. You're the real MVP here ;)

 

You're most welcome. :)