GTA Vice City .Lod Mod

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City mod | Released Mar 11, 2012

- No Permission is granted for the public use, to share or change the contents of the files of use in other projects or total conversions other than personal use in your private home. Any file hosting web-site that holds links with the following materials will be removed as the website owns its own copyright that covers the project standards.
- Don't come to me to ask about this, I'm not saying this twice.

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- Author: BLITZ
- Installer: Setup
- Requirement: Standalone
- Game Version: Works with all version.
- Setup Size: 97MB
- Mod Total Size: 362MB
- Mod Total Size on Disk: 362MB
- Total Files: IMG Archive
- Release Date: 12/13.03.2012[Waiting Approval]
- Setup doesn't make Start Menu shortcuts
- Setup doesn't have uninstaller, you simply delete the files.
- Is best to install the mod on a clean Vice City otherwise it's possible to wake up with crashes, in case if any previews mod installed is based on the same files of this mod, usually maps and anything that are related to .lod objects or the files that I changed.
- You need to install again whatever you had on the previews game because the mod is based on GTA3.IMG

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- Data/maps; .IDE & .IPL, generic.IDE, .GTA3.IMG
- I set the .exe with a lot more limits. There will not be any problems of installing new map mods or new buildings.
- Only DFF.Lod are changed in this mod. No normal .DFF are replaced or changed.
- 1071 .DFF files are changed.
- 22 .COL files are changed.
- 389 new files are added in .lod world including .COL files for each .DFF[double the number]
- 6043 to 6432 files in .IMG3
- IDE & IPL Limits are changed in .exe to let the new files to load.
- Mod has its own executable [.exe], reference to above.
- Stream Memory is increased from 0 to 255. Later, was set to 512MB; 1024 is not necessary.
- LOD Trees: Yes, Vice City .Lod Mod brings something totally new in VC world.
- No merge between objects were made.
- Not a single new TXD were added.
- Water pools texture added on the entire game.
- Interior added to shops, bars, misc buildings that are connected with the exterior world; The Well Stacked Pizza, Health Shops, etc.
- Interior glass, windows added to all buildings, reference to above.
- Neons added for the entire night clubs among the beach, example Malibu Club.
- The entire .LOD objects are set to max, for better draw distance; settings were set to 3000.
- Working .LOD DFF lights & vertex working properly at night for all the buildings.
- The four biggest DFF .LOD objects are rescale to -1[microscopic], later on, the files where deleted from their .IPL only. They still exist in .IDE and IMG.
- Sea rocks, sunk ships, buoy, small misc objects but not all of them added on the entire map.
- Billboards and their support structure added.
- Unnecessary big bushes with large textures removed from Star & Golf Island for a better view. Get used with it.
- Fix the collision store were the Cuban Gang Shirt is placed, now is accessible.
- Fix Rock City glass/windows in Downtown. Isn't transparent anymore.
- Just make copies of P.O. files and rename them with the ones that can be found in yacht.IDE. and don't forget to add lod at the beginning. Remember that I haven't made .lod trees for small palm trees with flower pots that doesn't require draw distance as they are considered small objects. I did only for the main trees.
- The mod doesn't work in ViceMP. So sorry about this, but I can't do anything about in order to fix this problem. I tried only with the .IMG3 and the game still crashes, meaning the game or the ViceMP doesn't accept massive changes on the archive, plus the mod has its own exe.
- Because of the massive changes during the progress and because of duplicating the objects for both Islands you will get some fps drops in some specific places, usually, if you are placed in the farthest corners of the map and view straight towards the other Island. This is the reason of setting StreamMemory to 512MB.
- DO NOT USE Limit Adjuster to set draw distance much higher than his own default, 300 DW. I tried and used 3000 for non-lod objects and everything started disappearing from many angles of player's view, .lod objects colliding with the normal objects. This happens because of many changes made to IMG. Is similar to San Andreas, blue sky, no objects around you, but here they weren't appearing in some angles.
- Trees & Palm Trees - Well, you can thank to R* that here I manage to bring them in .Lod world, because in San Andreas the leaves don't appear in .Lod world. Two issues persist to exist. The first one is that the trees are disappearing at some angles when you move the player, exactly of what I explained about 300DW. Increasing their box boundaries view from their .COL with COL Editor II didn't work, actually made them much worse. So in Vice City this it doesn't work like how in San Andreas works. The second issue related to trees is that they are loading only to the specific part of the map when you are flying, from distance you will not see them or some will appear, although towards Docks, Airport, Downtown, Haiti, palm trees are loading successfully, but if you are on the ground, you don't have this problem.
- I am sorry, but this is a very old engine with old graphics, codes, scripts, and so on.
- END NOTE!
- .LOD trees can be found in yacht .IDE, maps, data folder. IDs from 4925 to 4934 including these numbers too. I set them here because the yacht has just couple of IDs.
- The mod is an installer and it will automatically install the mod
- .IMG is rebuild, no need to do this step.
- No crashing were encountered during the progress.
- The mod was tested many times as the progress was going forward.
- Compare with San Andreas Vice City has about the same amount of merged .LOD objects, result of many objects missing in .lod world.
- I couldn't bring bushes in .LOD world because of their .COL files, in COL Editor II they don't appear when I import them.
- Every new file is named at the beginning with LOD in both .IDE & .IPL. All of them can be found at the bottom of the files for each specific .IDE & .IPL
- The new ID files begin from number ID 4795.
- Vice City is based on loading Splash Screens between Islands similar to GTA III, demanding to move and duplicate the entire .LOD files in one single .IPL in order to load everything in both sides of the map. The main important Island is islandsf.IPL, there you will find everything that was added and is new. The other Island is mansion.IPL, but it didn't require any new files in order to load into the map.
- Later on, I have found out that I need to re-duplicate couple of them and place the objects in each .IPL [20.IPL] in order to see the new objects from the distance or above sky.
- * I had to do this because the entire maps where set to load four special .LOD files that were merged with every single object from the entire game, actually only the buildings that were close to the shore existed, other than that complete landspace terrain. Now you will wonder why I haven't done this instead of changing their .LOD aspect using the normal .dff with 3DMax.
- * To begin with, you can't merge the entire game in only four .LOD files because there are too many to attach with, too much poly for 3DMax to load, hundreds to above 3000 .DFF as the entire IMG archive contain 6043 files. These four files are merged because they are in low poly, making the game to load them without a problem.
- For the new 353 files wasn't necessary to move them as they are set to load on both .LOD and Normal world. Later, I actually did, but I explained this already above.
- I removed the bushes from Star & Golf Island because it was messing with the trees from distance, plus they were scaled to building sizes, Vice City is very old.
- Compare to San Andreas, the changes that were made to Vice City for .LOD files to load, made the game to let all the .Lod files to entire in Normal world, messing around big time between the objects; here includes Star & Golf Island.
- Two objects aren't changed in this mod. The Zeppelin that doesn't have .LOD and is low poly made, looking very close to an .LOD object. The second one is the top crane in dock that moves, well now it doesn't move and I don't know if that is an .lod objects or just collision. I haven't found the .dff even in main.scm, plus in Med Editor the top crane doesn't appear.