Grand Theft Auto Ideas Pages

By Michael Mendelsohn (mendel@informatik.uni-bremen.de)

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Welcome!

What you will find here:

What you won't find here:

  • daily updates, snazzy graphics - go play GTA for speed and colour (or pay for my time ;-)

  • lots of tips and hints and stuff copied from other sites - go there yourself! (I visit GOURANGA! regularly).

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If you have some ideas of your own feel free to share them with me! If you want to contribute to this page, please do so!


Web Site Journal

10 Sep 98: I have for two months been busy quietly redoing the site, redecorating and expanding the material until it now fills 50 pages of HTML. Much new material has been added, including two pages of map ideas, two (!) GTA reviews, a behind-the-scenes peek at a GTA roleplay and a new GTA Utility, Gman. The old and famous Unofficial Reference Handbook adds another 30 pages to the site as well, but is not affected by the redesign. The new site will be opened to the public on Sunday Sep 13th 1998 at this URL. If you are a webmaster running a "news" section, send me an email naming your site and I'll pass you the Press Kit with more information and directions to viewing the site now.

13 April 98: Totally surprised, I receive Mugwum‘s „Site of the Week“ award which is handed to me in a big awards ceremony. I am finally putting the FXT2TXT FAQ online. What I have been doing in the meantime is mentioned in my award speech; suffice it to say I still get a measure of GTA Email which I am answering. Ah, before I forget: All Handbook Users should be aware that DMA have released Technical Docs for the most important GTA data files!

GTA Reference 21 Jan 98: Two weeks have gone by without updates as work on the GTA Editor picks up and studying takes its toll on my time; still, this page receives over 130 hits per day now, I am dishing out 10MB per day to you guys! I am still answering all emails and doing sneeky updates to the Annotated Webring Index . Hanoverfist of the GTA Drive By has donated a button to the Reference Handbook you can use for linking to it. Is it just me or do you notice "Hubba Bubba" chewing gum more now you've played GTA? A big thank you to Mike Dailly, Brian Baird and all the others at DMA for the support they've given (and continue to give) the GTA Editor Project!

13 Jan 98: Lots of work behind the scenes; no time for handbook updates. Look on Sam's site for CMP file news, study Darren's new MISSION commentary and keyword reference list (incomplete) to get the latest info. It's a joy to work with these two bright byteheads! The editor project has had a get-together on IRC last sunday; you might want to mail in whether you want want to have the editor run under DOS or Windows. I did look around the webring to check the Annotated Index ; some sites were unreachable. Many average sites have seen no update this year, and should be thrown off the ring if I had a say in the matter - perhaps it is well that I don't ;-). You can check my server statistics of Jan 10th if you like. And some news for TXT2FXT users: don't use DOS EDIT to do edit the TXT files - it'll screw them up. I could patch TXT2FXT to strip CR codes, but have no time for it. I am still answering mail, though; some suggested improvements have reached me that will find their way on the page eventually. If I have not answered your email (be it idea or question), you probably did not provide a working return address; please try again with an address I can use.

6 Jan 98: Darren Latham has just permitted me to publish his commentary for the San Andreas Mission 1 MISSION.INI statements. It's on the "Game Editor Work" page.

6 Jan 98: Changed Sewer mission so you now can ride the boat - way cool! If I now activated the Island City Cranes to pick up that boat - but I am too tired, and the guy usually makes sure you get out before he picks it up :-( I also used Paul Ashton's GFX Editor to mark the water tiles in style001.gry and found that different shades are made by remapping the palette! That is the end of the Master Palette Theory for the textures ;-) Updated STYLE00x.gry Handbook page.

5 Jan 98: Apart from answering my email, I did some research these last days and coding a mapviewer in Delphi to test some theories about *.cmp files. There is quite a backlog now, I'll see what I get done. –- Added a page with commented links to all GTA webring sites and others. I have sent an Email to all people on it notifying them of this. If you're not on it or want something changed, email me! –- Finally added *.CMP page to the handbook. Credit goes to Ian Howson who helped find out most of this.. –- Olivier Mengué contacted me; his Road-Killers Rendez-Vous has good hacking pages. Added his info on RAW files to the Handbook and put links to his site in the object codes and program statements overviews. I will rework these overviews to contain the new info; a hip MISSION.INI hacker named Darren Latham (he sure knows where his towel is) has sent me his line by line comment on the first two missions on the San Andreas map, and I am waiting for his permission to post it.--- Updated Handbook ZIP file and graphics ZIP file; added hint in Downloading Instructions to go to the gif directory directly if you already have the old gif archive. –- New Web server statistics.

1 Jan 98: New addition to the handbook: In the Files section of the handbook you can now find information on STYLE00x.gry Files. Credit goes to Ian Howson who found out most of this. Zip file fans: You won't see the example graphics if you download only the Handbook ZIP file; download the optional graphics ZIP file (238KB) for that, too! Want more info on these files? Find it now on the new Downloading Instructions page! Interested in how popular this site is? Miss a counter? Look at an excerpt of our Web Server Statistics reflecting the last month instead!

31 Dec 97: New: How to Make Kill Frenzies. The text version of this Howto may be posted on other sites if it remains unchanged.

30 Dec 97: Finally updated Ideas on improving the game - greatly expanded. New "Sewers" mission on Things to do - you can walk below the streets! This discovery was a result of decoding part of the nyc.cmp file - a report on the results is in the works.

29 Dec 97: No new data today - celebrated second birthday of a close relative. I have received 4 Emails with new Ideas on improving the game, all contributors have received personal responses, I am putting some of these ideas on the page soon. My site has now been downloaded around 200 times by unknown entities, the Handbook ZIP file has been downloaded 36 times. Hey you handbook users, give me some feedback - how do you like it? do you have any new info? I did put up a picture of me you can use as a button when linking to this page. It is at the far right of this paragraph. If you think you have a better idea (or a better picture ;-), feel free to improve on this...

28 Dec 97: The entry on the MISSION.INI file structure is finally finished. Also new: List of ID Numbers and Config Statements from the full game. and a page on (x,y,z) Coordinates. The complete Object Code Lists are available now and can be accessed from the Object Code Overview which itself is still under construction. Among these is the Token list (text) - List of object and program statement keyword tokens for use with the GTA Editor Project. The Handbook ZIP file has been updated.

27 Dec 97: Finally, a definite list of all MISSION.INI object codes. I am too tired to whip it into handbook shape, so here is a rough release. If you can provide info on the meaning of more of these codes, spread the word!

24 Dec 97: If I am to believe our web server statistics, well over 100 people have had a good look at this site - how many of them robots I don't know ;-) Acceptance to Webring came through - thanks, Magnus!

23 Dec 97: A number of people (5) interested in pooling their editor work have contacted me, the GTA Editor Project is starting to take off. New "London" Project idea on Things to do page. Added files section, it contains the handbook HTML files in zip format.

20 Dec 97: Added Patchtool idea - programmers, take note! Put "real" car names in PARKED.

19 Dec 97: Updated PARKED reference (contains new info on car colors and attributes!). Attribute info will be extended in the future, but it's now 3 a.m. and I am tired.

18 Dec 97: Added PARKED reference (contains new info on car types!). Extended info on height levels in object code overview. Theses data type infos are going to move into their own section in the future.

18 Dec 97: Added Files for printing MISSION.INI to the Work page. Moved all data files to the gta/files directory. Produced index pages for the handbook.

18 Dec 97: Applied for membership in the Webring. Will move the links into the "What you won't find here" box once I'm accepted.

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18 Dec 97: Created the unofficial Grand Theft Auto Reference Handbook with entries on object codes, program statements, POWERUP, POWERUP_ON and "How to add Powerups"

17 Dec 97: Created 4 pages to start the Grand Theft Auto Ideas Pages.

14 Dec 97: Programmed FXT2TXT tool.


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