Carcols.dat

carcols.dat is a file located in the data folder from GTA 3 to San Andreas or the common\data folder for GTA 4. The file contains a colour palette and numbers to associate them with specific cars. Cars may or may not have a colour palette.

Overview

Line comments are indicated by the character # (number sign) and empty lines are allowed. They can be placed anywhere in the file. Each section starts with a section identifier indicating how the content of the section gets interpreted by the game. The identifier is followed by the definition entries. Each entry takes one line and every line follows a specific format. The end of any section is indicated by the terminating string end. Both the section identifier and terminating string are case sensitive. Data are usually separated by the character , (comma) but can be separated by  (space). Extra tabs and spaces anywhere in the beginning of the line, between data, or after the data are omitted by the game and can be used to improve readability for human eyes.

Example

# line comment
col
# default style in col section
5,5,5
# valid style
	    5 5 5 # unread data
end

Format

Section	Supported games	Description
col		Color palette
car
car4
car3

col

col
# III/VC/SA
R, G, B
# IV
R, G, B, Prefix, Color
end

		Identifier	Type	Description
A,B,C		R, G, B	integer[3]	The color in RGB.
-	D	Prefix	string	Police scanner prefix name: - bright light dark
-	E	Color	string	Police scanner color name: black blue brown beige graphite green grey orange pink red silver white yellow GrottiRed DewbaucheGreen

Below are the colours available in the default 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

GTAVCS

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

GTA4

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	127	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135	136

134, 135, 136 - TBoGT

car

The CAR section associates specific colours from the colour palette with cars. Data in a line is separated same as in COL section (with a comma ','). Every car has a line dedicated to it, followed by numbers which specify the car's colour 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:

 kuruma, 18,57, 5,14 

The game will interpret the data like this:

• the colour pair data belongs to car 'kuruma'
• numbers '18' and '57' are the first colour pair. 18 is the primary colour, 57 is the secondary. Let's say this is the Kuruma from GTA3, so we match these colours up to the GTA3 palettes above. The primary colour will be this red colour, and the secondary this blue colour.
• numbers '5' and '14' are second colour pair. 5 is the primary colour, 14 is the secondary.

The game will randomly spawn cars with either data pair, but will never mix pairs together. You can have a lot more than two pairs for one car - the more pairs, the more variety of colours the car will have each time it spawns.

car3

Only used in GTA4, this section contains the same data as CAR section from previous games but has a third value, the specular colour.

car4

Included in GTASA, this section contains the same data as CAR section but has colours in sets of 4 instead of 2. These cars will need to have not only primary and secondary materials assigned within the dff, but also tertiary and quaternary materials. By default, only the Campervan, Cement Mixer and Squalo boat use 4 colours in the game.

In GTA4 the data is the same as in the CAR3 section but with a fourth value, the tertiary colour.

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. If you choose 255,0,0 you will have the strongest red colour possible.

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 now 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 of the car's line must not have a comma ending it.

A pair can also have the same colour in it twice, all this will do is match the primary and secondary colours together. Remember, many cars only make use of the primary colour in a pair - the dff model file will need editing if you want the secondary colour to function somewhere on a car. The secondary colour (and perhaps tertiary and quaternary if using CAR4) can be set to anything should the model not actually have any materials assigned to those values.

Note: In San Andreas, having more than 179 colors will crash the game.

Adding carcols functionality to your own model (ZModeler only)

This can be achieved simply using tags on the ends of your model's material names. You can force the game to apply the primary colour setting to a material by adding:

[prim]

to the end of the material name, separated by a space. Secondary is [sec], tertiary is [ter] and quaternary is [qua]. A model can have multiple materials using a specific data type.

Tool

•  GTAGarage: X Car Colors Editor