First, you will need flitskikker's IV Audio Toolbox which can be downloaded @ http://gtaforums.com/topic/536856-ivrelalpha-iv-audio-toolbox/

Install it, and then also download the source and extract it to where you installed IV Audio ToolBox.

Also, you will need a recording program. I recommend Audacity which is free and can be downloaded @ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Use OpenIV (if you don't have it, http://openiv.com/WebIV/guest.php?get=1 ) to open Speech.rpf and then look for the ped you'd like to edit and extract it to where ever you want. I usually make a new folder on desktop for quick access.

Ex:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Run IVAudioToolBox.exe and open the IVAUD file that you want to edit. When you open a file, it will ask for File Type, Single Channel or Single Channel Compressed. Go with the one that the program guessed.

Ex:

In IV Audio ToolBox, you will see this:

Size and Offset don't really matter. What matters is Sample Rate, Duration, and Channel. The recording's or files you have, have got to be single channel (mono). Sample Rate has to be exact or could crash your game. Also, the duration must be either smaller or about the same. If you're a couple seconds longer, for example, a file you want to replace is 0:03 and the new file you have is 0:05, you should be good. Just don't do it a lot because you're game will crash. I experienced this when I edited the m_zombie bank and had a few sound files over 5 seconds and within 15 seconds the game crashed back to desktop.

Select the audio you want to replace and then press the replace button:

Choose the audio file where ever you placed it and either press Open or double-click and the next menu that pop's up should look like this or similar:

Now hit replace and it should do the trick. Do this to as many as files you want and then Save over the original. Go back to OpenIV, go to Resident, and replace the old IVAUD with your new edited one and then press rebuild.

If you're using Audacity this is just a little more info on how to Resample, change the audio to single channel and how to get the megaphone voice effect.

Correcting the Sample Rate:

Changing to Single Channel:

Select 'Split Stereo to Mono'

Megaphone effect:

At the top of the menu bar where it says Effect, go down to Equalization... and then adjust the the sliders like this:

Press OK and you're done. You can also adjust these sliders to your own liking. Now it's time to export! Go to File > Export... Then name your file whatever you want and then choose Save as Type:

Press save and ignore the next menu that comes up and just press OK. And that's it you're done. This is my first tutorial, hope you guys find it useful. Also if you have anything else to add, feel free.

Here is example my editing of m_y_heli_cop bank. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxBaWErQX0s&feature=youtu.be

I have seen that some people got a little frustrated about when they select a police officer or any player model, he would still speak like Niko (i.e. not the model's own voice), either when driving into something, getting hit, or making him talk with the Numpad in LCPDFR.

So to fix this:

1) Select your player model in the trainer.

2) Go to page 1 of model spawning and click "Speech Menu".

3) Go down to where it says "Play random speech" and press it once. (He will say something random!)

And that's it. He should now speak how he is supposed to and you can carry on listening to those strange speeches!

Hope this helped.

fbo194

So, how do we use it?

Let's look at the vanilla SWAT line:

M_Y_Swat, M_Y_Swat_p, 	COP, 	move_m@swat, GESTURES@MALE,	GESTURES@M_PHONE,FACIALS@M_LO,	visemes@m_lo,	0, 	move_m@swat,	null,	-1,-1,	PED_TYPE_PLAYER,	VOICE_PLY_CR, 	VOICE_PLY_CR

The lines breakdown somewhat like this:

M_Y_SWAT = This is simply saying what ped you're using. It corresponds to the .wdd in componentpeds.img.

M_Y_SWAT_P = This is the helmet/hat that the ped uses. It is almost always the same as the ped name, just with _p. Write NULL if you don't want them to have hats.

COP = This is the relationship group it is in. COP, CIVMALE, CIVFEMALE, etc...

move_m@swat = This is the important one. This is the default walking style of the pedestrian in question. This covers how the walk, idle, and run. We'll be changing this to move_rifle.

I don't specifically know what the rest of the lines are, but I believe they deal with how the ped gestures and uses phones.

Sure enough, it works fine! Here's a line for the regular NOOSE peds (yes, it is the same even if you've modified the texture or something)

M_Y_Swat, 		M_Y_SWAT_P, 		COP,	 		move_rifle,		GESTURES@MALE,		GESTURES@M_PHONE,	FACIALS@M_LO,		visemes@m_lo,		0, 		move_rifle,		null,			-1,-1,		PED_TYPE_PLAYER,	VOICE_PLY_CR, 		VOICE_PLY_CR

And here's the line for (removes the spawning of NOOSE helmets. If you find the idea of helmets randomly exploding out of cops heads the first time they get shot funny, than use the first line.)

M_Y_Swat, 		null, 		COP,	 		move_rifle,		GESTURES@MALE,		GESTURES@M_PHONE,	FACIALS@M_LO,		visemes@m_lo,		0, 		move_rifle,		null,			-1,-1,		PED_TYPE_PLAYER,	VOICE_PLY_CR, 		VOICE_PLY_CR

So there you go. The rather common problem has been solved!

(note to mods, I'll be adding this to the tutorial section in just a second.)

As you may have noticed, GTA IV's natural system for spawning police cars and officers is a little bugged. Primarily, it doesn't mix the two types (Skinny cops and Fat cops for peds, and the Vapid Cruiser and Merit Patrol for cars) it just goes all in with them. For many, this is annoying (to say the least) and kinda immersion breaking when 15 fat clones are all having heart attacks while Niko goes on a rampage. Some have tried to alleviate this problem by replacing fat cops with female officers, but the fact that you can't get a mixture has always bugged me. Here's an example:

How do we fix this?

Well, frankly, we can't, or at least not in the sense of getting the game to choose both models equally. But what we can do is simply stop the game from picking fat, unrealistic cops when deciding what officers should be spawned. It is also worth mentioning you can pick any police model, and also replace the officers in Alderney (or have state troopers spawn anywhere.) The best part? This takes about 15 seconds and only requires notepad.

1. Officers

Go to

Grand Theft Auto IVCommonData and open up pedgrp.dat

Press ctrl+f and search "# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS" or simply keep scrolling until you see it.

It more than likely looks like this:

# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS (M_Y_Cop_Traffic removed. Was the one in NJ)

M_Y_Cop, M_M_Fatcop

M_Y_Strooper

M_Y_Cop = Skinny LCPD officers. Almost all mods mod this.

M_M_Fatcop = The two fat LCPD officers

M_Y_Strooper = The State Trooper Model

M_Y_Cop_Traffic = The blue shirted LCPD Traffic model

The game reads this as specific instructions. The first column is the first model that can spawn in all districts except Alderney. The second slot can also spawn there (but they will not spawn together). The final slot is the officer model that will only spawn in Alderney.

If it isn't apparent, you can simply change 'm_m_fatcop' to 'm_y_cop', and the game will always choose m_y_cop in Liberty City. You can change any of the 3 slots to any law enforcement model. I have m_y_cop spawning in all 3 districts.

BUGS:

This is a rare bug, but sometimes the game will freak out and pick all of the in game models flagged as police officers for checkpoints. The most obvious place this happens is the NOOSE/LCPD Station in northern Algonquin. This only happens to the models who stand around holding M4's, not the cops who stand around talking.

2. Vehicles

This is the same principal; tricking the game into only choosing one model.

Go to Grand Theft Auto IVCommonData

Open up cargrp.dat and scroll to # POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS. The first two models on the list are the ones that spawn in traffic. NOOSE and SWAT Vehicles are handled on their own, so sorry, but you can't change that. If you change "police, police2" to "police, police, police2" then police2 will not show up in traffic. This is useful for those who cannot use the TBOGT and TLAD vehicle mod, or simply need another slot for a non-patrol vehicle. Alternatively you could add the NOOSE Cruiser or even FBI Vehicle, if that's your thing.

First, each texture goes on a model. If you play around with OpenIV, you notice that there are multiple components (I'm calling them models) in a .wdd. Models can have multiple textures. For example, the Latino head is one model, with 3 textures. However, there are 5 images in the wtd associated with that model. Let's look at them.

A typical image is named head_diff_001_a_lat or something similar. There are 5 parts to the name. The first three identify the purpose: "head" means that it is for a head (like "uppr" means shirt and "lowr" means pants). "diff" means that it shows the colors of the model. A model can have multiple diffs, and it is what most uniform mods change. I'll be calling diffs "textures" (they are most similar to what you think of as textures). Instead of "diff", there can also be "normal" (the bumpmap) and "spec" (no idea). Most uniform mods only change diffs. The "000" shows which head model it is for.

The last 2 parts only appear on textures, and are the most important for modding (the rest basically just says what the texture is for). The "a" identifies which texture it is. A model can have multiple texture. This is important. On the fat cop, the short sleeved shirt is one model, 2 textures (for example). Lastly, the "uni" seems to mean "all races" or "uniform".

So, how to do a short sleeved shirt? (I'm assuming EFLC, but the same method should work for IV). The main difficulty is the race. Model is not that big a deal, and is only really visible looking along the arm. What you need to do is add new textures into the wtd. I used OpenIV. First, export uppr_diff_000_a_uni (the short sleeves texture) and at least 1 diff for each head model and open it. Then, select the black area on the sleeves (that's the thermal sleeve part). Now, pick one of the head diffs. Use a color picker tool and pick a color from the head texture (preferably a color from a hand near the wrist). On the short sleeve texture, fill the thermal sleeve with the color you just picked. Now, save as uppr_diff_000_a_chi/lat/whi/bla (depending on what head you chose). Import it into the wtd with OpenIV. Do the same for the next race, etc., but use _000_b_ and _000_c_ instead of _000_a_. Import both of those too. Finally, either delete "uppr_diff_000_a_uni" or rename it to "uppr_diff_000_d_uni". The second option will let any race wear thermal sleeves as well.

This also brings up another concept: you can add as many textures as you like. For example, if you want an NYPD style captain wearing long sleeves, take a white long sleeve shirt texture, replace rank and badge, and import it as uppr_diff_001_b_uni. It will automatically show up about half the time: no model editing needed!

BTW, if this is as clear as mud, reply with what you don't get and I'll try to explain better.

However, there is one very useful thing you can do without knowing 3D modeling: combining different ped meshes.

What is a ped mesh? It's a component like head_002 or uppr_001. For example, for skinny cops, the long sleeve shirt is one mesh, and the leather jacket is another. By combining them, you can have cops with only short sleeves and jackets; cops with state trooper pants; state troopers with a regular cop's long sleeve shirt (instead of their weird one); etc.

So how does this work? To start with, you need OpenIV. OpenIV can export .wdd files to its own format, called openFormats. Crucially, openFormats are text-based. To export a model to openFormats, first navigate to componentpeds.img (click the arrow next to GTA IV or EFLC, under pc\models\cdimages).

Then, right click it, and select "Export to openFormats (.odd)".

Make a new folder somewhere, and select it. Then, hit "OK".

Open the .odd file in your favorite text editor.

Each gtaDrawable section represents one mesh. It doesn't contain the actual mesh; all it does is to tell OpenIV about the mesh when you import this back in at the end, so OpenIV can set up the .wdd properly. Let's look at one section of it:

gtaDrawable lowr_001_u

{

shadinggroup

{

	 Shaders 2

	 {

		 gta_ped.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI LOWR_NORMAL_001 35.00000000 0.20000000 1.00000000;0.00000000;0.00000000 LOWR_SPEC_001 1.00000000

		 gta_default.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI

	 }

}

skel

{

	 skel m_y_cop.skel

}

lodgroup

{

	 mesh

	 {

		 high 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh 0 9999.00000000

		 med 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_med.mesh 0 9999.00000000

		 low none 9999.00000000

		 vlow none 9999.00000000

		 center 0.00081600 0.07059900 -0.52030600

		 radius 0.54099200

		 aabb.min -0.23394000 -0.14672600 -1.00492300

		 aabb.max 0.23622800 0.28086400 -0.02737300

	 }

}

}

Seems complicated, right? We don't actually need to worry about most of it. Let's go through line-by-line:

gtaDrawable lowr_001_u

This is the mesh name. The lowr_001_u tells OpenIV what mesh it's dealing with. The lowr means that this is a lower-body mesh (i.e., a pair of pants). The 001 is the number of the mesh. The rule for these is that they have to be unique within a given type, and range from 000 to 00n, where there are n+1 meshes of that type (i.e., there is lowr_000_u and lowr_001_u; uppr_000_u through _003_u; etc.) Worry about this at the end.

I don't know what the _u is; since we're not making our own meshes, just keep it _u if it started as _u (which seems to be clothes), _r if it started as _r (seems to be heads), etc. All you would ever need to change is the number; the lowr_ and _u should stay the same.

gta_ped.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI LOWR_NORMAL_001 35.00000000 0.20000000 1.00000000;0.00000000;0.00000000 LOWR_SPEC_001 1.00000000

gta_default.sps LOWR_DIFF_001_A_UNI

Ignore the numbers. All you need to care about is the LOWR_*_001_* parts. Those represent textures for the model. Now, GTA seems to select ped textures its own way; read my tutorial on ped textures for details. This probably just controls OpenIV's preview of the ped. Even so, you may as well update it when you have to. Again, all you'd change is the number in there.

skel m_y_cop.skel

This defines the skeleton that this mesh maps to. You want it to be the same as the name of the odd file, but .skel instead of .odd.

high 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh 0 9999.00000000

med 1 m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_med.mesh 0 9999.00000000

This is the key part of the section. It tells OpenIV where to find the mesh file. In your folder, you should have seen a subfolder called m_y_cop (or whatever). That has a lot of .mesh files inside. The m_y_cop\lowr_001_u_high.mesh is actually literally a filepath for the mesh.

OK, this explanation of the file format is done. The next post will have a tutorial to do stuff with these files.



How do we do stuff with this format? Some stuff should be clear. For example, let's say we want to get rid of the raincoat (uppr_003_u). We just delete that section in the odd. That's all. (in this case, we'd also delete lowr_001_u, because it's the pants that go with the raincoat, but that's a special thing about m_y_cop). Note also that if we instead had deleted uppr_002_u, we'd have to renumber uppr_003 to uppr_002.



How do we renumber? We need to change the number in the header and in the textures section. Don't change it in the meshes section. This is key: under no circumstances should you modify the path to the mesh.



Now, let's do something cool: adding the white cop head. This is easier than most additions, because the textures for the head are already in m_y_cop.wtd. Here's how we do it:



First, export m_y_cop.wdd (the GTA IV rendition, not the EFLC one. If you have EFLC, you can find this rendition in pc/models/cdimages/componentpeds.img; the EFLC-specific one is in the TBOGT and TLAD directories, and while this would work, the textures aren't already there, so it's harder).



Next, we need the mesh for the white head. Fortunately, as Custo discovered, TLAD's m_y_prisonguard.wdd is just a modified version of IV's cops. In particular, it has all 3 heads (though it doesn't have a raincoat or short sleeves). So, we want to export that to the same folder we exported m_y_cop.wdd to.



Next. open both of the .odd files in a text editor. Find the section called "gtaDrawable head_002_r" in m_y_prisonguard.odd. Copy it into m_y_cop.odd, just before the final closing brace (but after the second-to-last brace). Since it has the right number, all we need to do is change the skeleton. Change it from m_y_prisonguard.skel to m_y_cop.skel. Save the file.



We're now done with the openFormats (see how easy that was?) Now, all that's left is importing it back in. OpenIV can do this too. Go to componentpeds.img, and click the "Edit Mode" button up top. Under "New", select "Import openFormats". Browse to m_y_cop.odd, hit OK, and wait for it to finish. Now, double click m_y_cop.wdd to preview it (this specific feature is why I first started using OpenIV above SparkIV). Select head_002_r, and check that it looks OK. If it doesn't, you made a mistake somewhere (you didback up, right?) It probably does, though. If it does, you're done! Launch GTA and see the white cops now patrolling Liberty City! 



For more advanced mesh combinations, there are additional steps. First, you need to renumber the mesh you add so it doesn't conflict (or, if you remove a mesh, renumber the other meshes so they have the proper range). Other than that, the biggest issue you're likely to face is textures.



GTA doesn't seem to care about the texture you assign in the openFormat. Instead, it matches textures to meshes the following way:

uppr_001_a_uni

reads as

*meshname*_*letter*_*race*

(letter acts like the mesh number). If you read my "Ped Texture Discoveries", you saw more detail on this. What does it mean for you?

Well, let's say you delete a mesh, renumber, but don't fix textures. What you get is the texture for, say, the long-sleeved shirt being applied to the jacket. This can look really weird, and is definitely not what you want. So, what you have to do is delete the textures for the mesh you removed, and renumber the higher textures. To rename a texture in OpenIV, make sure you're in Edit Mode, open the wtd, and double click the specific texture. Enter your new name. To delete a texture, highlight it and hit "Delete" on your keyboard. Obviously, you have to delete or rename a texture before you can give another texture its name.

Also, if you have added a mesh, you need to add textures for it. What you want to do is drag the appropriate textures from OpenIV to some folder (click the name on the left of the wtd browser, and drag to Windows Explorer). They'll show up as PNGs. Renumber the textures by changing the number in the file name. Then, open the wtd for the model you're changing, and drag the PNGs to the window. Hit "OK" for mipmap generation, and you're done.

Any questions? Comments? Other ped modelling information? Post below!