Popular Post Ash_735 17,485 Posted March 23, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted March 23, 2017 V-Mods: Days of Rage's Past How Modders are bringing the past back into Grand Theft Auto V It's amazing to think that we are less than six months away from Grand Theft Auto V's fourth anniversary and just under six months for Grand Theft Auto: Online's (or just short of the two year anniversary if we're talking about the PC version) but here we are at a time when Liberty City feels like a distant memory and West Elizabeth, New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso are still unexplored by an entire user base! However we are at the point of a modding breakthrough for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V and what better way to show this off than to bring not just Liberty City and Alderney but also the entire map from Red Dead Redemption into the game. Clear Skies and Sunny looking up in Algonquin Total conversion map mods are quite the staple in the Grand Theft Auto series, often seen as a way to bring the old into the new, one of the most popular back in the day being Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City, which ports over Grand Theft Auto III into Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's updated engine as well as bringing forward other improvements to the game as a bonus. Of course things became tricky after Rockstar Games ditched RenderWare in favour of their in-house Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) but that did not deter the modders, if anything it sprung forth a new era of modding and caused the birth of the OpenIV team (a name you might recognise). Throughout the following years we got to see map mods take shape on the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV, we saw San Andreas in the form of GTA IV: San Andreas and Vice City in the form of Vice City RAGE. However there was a wall that was hit as modders wanted to transport the maps from Midnight Club LA and later Red Dead Redemption but they found that these required a heavier amount of time and research and thus sadly these projects faded with no real progress. Let's fast forward a couple of years, Grand Theft Auto V was released, the multiple ports came out, and the OpenIV team have been gliding on providing mod support for these games and we've even seen earlier attempts at map modding via different methods, including those of the shut down FiveM project. In 2017 we saw the formation and reveal of two major projects that are getting mentioned around other gaming websites and forums, we're talking about "Liberty City in GTA V" and "Red Dead Redemption V". Two projects by two different teams taking the approach from different angles to deliver us our first proper RAGE era conversion from one game to another. Mexico sans "Far Away" We have the OpenIV team working on "Liberty City in GTA V" and the .White team working on "Red Dead Redemption V", both teams are experienced made up of members from various older Grand Theft Auto IV map modding projects to people working close in researching and breaking down the barriers of RAGE to allow further manipulation of these games. Even though both have a different work ethic and approach to how they do things they both have the common goal of bringing the playground of an older RAGE era game into the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V. OpenIV's "Liberty City in GTA V", which was revealed in January, is targeted for a Spring 2017 release for its first BETA and will require players to own Grand Theft Auto IV or Episodes from Liberty City as their method will involve converting the map over from the original games files into a OIV mod package to be loaded into Grand Theft Auto V. This team is famous for their OpenIV tool, which if you're a user of mods on Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V then you've already seen and used it, as well as their .black research project which has covered multiple console and PC versions of RAGE titles. Broker Bridge looking better than ever, putting V's rendering effects to use .White's "Red Dead Redemption V", revealed mid-March, is aiming for a Summer 2017 BETA release and the team have posted up a FAQ detailing things such as estimated download size, what version of the game it's converted from (Xbox 360) and other information. You will recognise a few names on this team as people who have worked on past total conversions such as GTA IV: San Andreas, as well as other well known modifications such as VisualV and the IVPack for Grand Theft Auto V. Marston looking on at the smooth Anti-Aliased canyon models Which project are you looking forward to the most? Or which map would you like to see attempted next? Either way you can keep up with both projects and more right here on GTANet's very own GTAForums, where these teams originated from and often frequent! GTAKid667, MGgames100, Dnero and 53 others 56 Link to post Share on other sites
Spider-Vice 45,003 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Amazing piece, well done! I think RDR:V is probably one of the best total conversion projects I've seen. Especially because RDR's RAGE is so different from its successors, I had no idea we were already able to read meshes, textures and other such things. Also really looking forward to LC in V, for lack of an actual official remaster... Ash_735, jedijosh920 and BlackScout 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Kirsty 38,175 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Great piece. Thanks for joining us to contribute, let's hope it's not the last time The singleplayer modding community definitely needs more spotlight. The technical work and craftmenship that goes into them is clear from the screenshots; there has obviously been controversy in the past and maybe some of the heads at R* don't like their games messed with too much, and for good reasons in some respects, but the singleplayer modding community has been at the heart of GTA for years. We've come along way huh? I mean how long have people begged for Red Dead Redemption on PC? It seems nothing short of a miracle that people will finally be able to experience the map on their computers, even those that get to experience it for the first time because they're PC-exclusive players, how cool would it be to re-live that feeling all over again? The graphics even look good enough to imagine the day we'll get that much anticipated Red Dead Redemption 2 news, especially that shot of John Marston. Hats off to both teams, I'm sure I'm not alone when I say we're truly looking forward to seeing more of these mods. jedijosh920, Spider-Vice, BlackScout and 5 others 8 Link to post Share on other sites
ShadowAdversy 3 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 This is by far, the BEST idea I've ever heard in this Era of Gaming. I can just imagine having to go through New Austin and West Elizabeth just to get into Liberty State, and the same if we are leaving Liberty City to get over to Los Santos. Keep this up, as this is going to Revolutionize and bring Redemption back to PC. This will be for the freedom and the Liberty of all players as well! burger_mike 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Cpt.Toast 9 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Can't wait for the release of the liberty city mod, been looking forward ever since it was announced burger_mike 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Yinepi 1,493 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) Good post sir. A enjoyable read. Edited March 24, 2017 by Yinepi Link to post Share on other sites
Claude_Lib 3,601 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 I just hope there is no rivalry involved. I really can't understand why people don't unite and do stuff together instead of doing something that the other team might have already done, thus wasting the time by doing the same thing twice. I mean reverse-engineering the file formats. comet_, ten-a-penny and burger_mike 3 Link to post Share on other sites
GtaFanatik 732 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 I just hope there is no rivalry involved. I really can't understand why people don't unite and do stuff together instead of doing something that the other team might have already done, thus wasting the time by doing the same thing twice. I mean reverse-engineering the file formats.Why should be any? They both work for different goals. I would think about a rivalry if both aim for the same project. I'm pretty sure that they can share they own researchs to grow up parallelly. I'm pretty eager to see LC in V as everyone. But I'm really impressed and curious to play RDR map as I had the chance to play that game just twice or thrice in my entire life. Either which of the two come first, I'm already making space in my drive and cleaning my V files. I hope to see news soon. Good work for both teams, and I hope the best for those actual and hopefully upcoming projects. Keep it up! Link to post Share on other sites
universetwisters 34,570 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) And yet custom maps are barely a thing. But hey, it's sure a start. Especially with RDR for V. Edited March 24, 2017 by universetwisters Link to post Share on other sites
Error2k 2,385 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) And yet custom maps are barely a thing. Shame people rather like to import ugly and not fitting vehicles from NFS or weapons from BF rather to do something more productive. I didn't even knew that you could create custom map for GTA V AND have NPCs placed around on it. Edited March 24, 2017 by quxxo Danny-Vain 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Claude_Lib 3,601 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Well, you can't. The tools allowing to do this are not available to the public yet. Link to post Share on other sites
