Carcols.dat

Introduction

Car Colours file (carcols.dat) contains a colour palette and numbers to associate them with specific cars. Cars may or may not have a colour palette.

Structure

The carcols.dat file is split up into two or three sections named "col", "car" and "car4" (car4 being only used in gta-sa). Each section starts with a section identifier and ends with the keyword "end", both in a single line.

Comments in this file are done by using the numbersign "#" symbol at the start of the line.

Example:

# a comment!

COL
...
end

CAR
...
end

CAR4
...
end

COL

Col section contain colour palette, the data is made of text lines, every line contains 3 numbers seperated with a comma ',' sign. The 3 numbers in a line specifify the Red, Green and Blue component of that line's colour. With all three values, a colour is formed, and applied to a car. Each value is between 0 and 255, thus 256 options per value; a total of 16,777,216 different colour combinations possible.

Below are the colours available in an unedited carcols.dat file, numbered according to their respective lines.

GTA3

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39
40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59
60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79
80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94

GTAVC

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39
40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59
60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79
80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94

GTASA

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39
40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59
60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79
80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99
100	101	102	103	104	105	106	107	108	109	110	111	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119
120	121	122	123	124	125	126

CAR

CAR section asociate specific colors from color palette with cars, data in a line is separated same as in COL section (with a comma ','). Every line contains car's model name, and numbers which specify car's color pairs (2 colors per color pair - primary and secondary). For example, on a police car, the primary colour is black, and the secondary is white. Make the police car's numbers 2,0 and you'll have a blue and white police car.

Here is an example:

thiscar, 1,3, 4,8

The game will interpret the data like this:

• the color pair data belongs to car 'thiscar'
• numbers '1' and '3' are first color pair. 1 is the primary colour, 3 is the secondary.
• numbers '4' and '8' are second color pair. 4 is the primary colour, 8 is the secondary.

The game will randomly spawn cars with either data pair, but never mix pairs together. You can have a lot more than two pairs for one car - the more pairs, the more variety in colour the car will have.

CAR4

San andreas only, contains same data as CAR section but specifies 4 colors for specific cars, that is instead of two colors in a color pair there are four.

Adding new colours

This is incredibly simple. To begin with, you must come up with an RGB code that matches the colour you want a car to spawn as. As explained earlier, choose any number between 0 and 255 for each 3 values. Now in the COL section, add a new line at the bottom, and give it a # number that follows on from the very last colour. Make sure your new line does not have the same # number as any other line. Once you have your new line ready, you can add a name for it on the right, similar to the other lines, but this is not necessary. You have finished with the COL section.

Now we move onto the CAR and CAR4 sections. Find the vehicle you want your new colour(s) to apply to. This vehicle should already have one or more pairs assigned to it. You can either remove these, or add your new pair to the end. Whichever you choose will make no difference, but don't forget the last number in the entire line does not require a comma on it.

A pair can also have the same colour in it twice, all this will do is match the primary and secondary colours together.