[Deji]

I was thinking... Wouldn't be cool if I went to get a drink and breakfast. Then I got distracted by San Andreas Multiplayer. After that I thought about my time on holiday.

Anywho, that has nothing to do with the tutorial I'm making about Dff modding. Ahh, my holiday was fun. I like the place I grew up in. Be cool if I could make a map mod of it.

EUREEEKAA! I don't know much about DFF modding anyway. Today we'll learn about Map Modding

PART ONE

Okay to jump into things before I type anymore bullcrap... You know that mission modding and most other mods have a file you have to edit. Well, Map modding uses the following files... IPL and IDE. Now, IPL is the positioning of things. It contains Info about what the file is and where it spawns. A bit like main.scm modding except easier.

Now, I don't really remember much about the IDE line but I dont think you need to know that much. Just remember that .IPL is things like Yellow markers, car spaws, weapon spawns, garages ect. It also controls sound and weather. By using culling it can stop rain in certain places. Like say, under a bridge.

Anyway we will now need to download a map editing tool. I suggest MEd: Download

PART TWO

Now that we have our brilliant tool. We can begin making mods. This is really easy. Honsetly, it might as well be The Sims! Although there are a few things you need to know. Rockstar made each of their buildings, and certain parts of land in one big piece. So you cant create just a wall like on the sims. But if you learn modeling you can do more.

First thing to do when you open MEd is set the path of San Andreas.
Next you should be faced with a black screen. Believe it or not, this is not bad. The tool works fine and you will be able to view San Andreas, just you haven't loaded anything.

At the left of the screen you will see a column and you should be able to see the tabs: IDE, IPL, Scene and Item.

Click on Scene. You'll see a long list with checkboxes. Click on the first checkbox. Now, notice the names of these rows of text... They are file paths. The end is what is most important. THe one you clicked on says: LAn.IPL Common sense should tell you what this is... Example LAn = Los Angeles north (Los Angeles = Los Santos in the real world) Some lower down say 'Interior'. We'll move onto these later.

Okay, now you've clicked a checkbox for part of San Andreas and you know kind of what it means, look to the bottom till you see a button saying 'Render' and click it. Then it will load...

The first thing you will see is a highway. Feel free to have a look around by clicking on the screen and moving the camera. When your satisfied and you've not messed something up double click on the first piece of highway.

The tab you used to switch to 'Scene' will have changed to 'Item'. Here you can see all the information about the item. Let's go through some of these.

Identifier: I don't quite know. I assume every object has a unique number.

DFF File: This is what makes the object what it is. If you change it, the object changes. Invalid entries break it and if you change it to something else it will change to that object.

Interior: An interior is the inside of a building in which you need a yellow marker to get to. More on this later.

Position Coords: (Position x,y,z) These decide where the object is. IF you edit this the object will move. Use the arrows to move the object slowly or fast.

Rotation Coords: (Rotation x,y,z) These rotate the object. If you edit this the object will rotate on it's axis.

LOD File: LOD is the Long Distance view of the object. If you look at something from far away or the land hasn't loaded properly yet, this is what you will be viewing.

PART THREE

I know this tutorial may seem to be moving slowly. But we have got through quite alot and all this Is stuff you need to know.

Now we can try moving the object we were looking at. Look at the coordinates. There is an x, y and z for both the position and rotation. Click the '>>' next to the x coordinates. You have just moved something in the game! Now click '<<' on the other side of the x coord. Wallah! You moved it back. It's that simple.

Do the same to the other y and z axis'. You will notice that X moves left and right, and Y moves forward and back. But Z moves up and down. You can also use the > and < to move the road a little bit.

Now the rotation is the same, if not easier. There is a little track which you can move the marker to spin the highway. Click the thing on the X axis and slide it along. Hopefully you have learnt angles and rotation in school and know what 180 degrees means (Nothing to do with heat) You'll see with this object you can move it from 0 all the way around to 360. Once you've finished playing with all axis' reset them to 0 or 360.

Now, same principle really. X = Rotate forward and back. Y = Rotate Left, Right. Z = Spin around. If you where to save while the object was rotated you would see it rotated in game.

PART FOUR

Now we are nearing the end!

Click on the tab called 'IPL' and click the first one so it is highlighted. This enables you to create new objects in that area. So now right click in the screen and click 'New'

There are alot of objects set out into path categories. Later you can browse them all at your delight. But right now click 'Dynamic.IDE' in the left collumn and then click 'barrel4' in the middle of the middle collumn. "Why click this?" coz it's fun!

Click okay and it will be inserted into the map. It may not be positioned right but this is the perfect time to get some practise. Move the axis' until it is placed on the highway. On my go I had to move only the 'Z' axis, but I moved the others to place it so it looked good. This is what every true mapper should want to do. Place it on the middle bit of the highway so cars dont crash into it.

Now your done! Click File > Save Install or click the 'IPL' Tab to save just what you edited (Reccomended to stop the others from being ruined.

PART FIVE

Well this didn't really need a part. I just wanted to say "This is the fun part" xP Go to that highway (Hopefully you do know where it is... It's by the police station)

Okay! You will see your barrel there. Wait until a car comes by and shoot it for some fun... If you want more explosiveness. Create more barrels! It's great practise.

There are some things I havn't quite explained fully but hopefully you can figure them out like I have and quite probably still have to. I may explain IPL and Interior editing a bit later. When I can do it better too!

Any questions? Ask here. Hope your satisfied as it took me ages to type.