carcols.dat

The carcols.dat file is located in the .\data directory of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas, or the .\common\data directory of GTA IV. It contains a color table and its index can be used to associate a color in the table with specific vehicle models. The games use this data when generating vehicles with random colors.

Overview

The file is in plain text format so it can be opened with any text editor (like Notepad). 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 up one line and follows a specific format detailed below. The end of any section is indicated by the terminating string end. Both the section identifier and terminating string are case sensitive. Data in each entry 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 table
car		Car color assignments
car4
car3

col

The col section is used to define colors in the color table. The index of the color in the table can be used in other sections to assign the vehicle colors.

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 index in the section.

GTA III and Vice City

In GTA III and Vice City, the police scanner describes the color of the vehicle the player is currently in. The association between what SFX the games play for the police scanner and the color table index is hardcoded. The police scanner supports only 95 indices in both games. For GTA III v1.0, the array containing this data starts at 0x60E910. For Vice City v1.0, the array containing this data starts at 0x6D5338. In the table below, the background color of the cell is the color defined for that index. Fourteen cells have two colors — the left side for GTA III and the right side for Vice City.

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

San Andreas

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

Vice City Stories

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

GTA IV

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 contains pairs of colors assigned to a vehicle model. Vehicles that spawn with a randomized color will choose a random pair of colors for the vehicle model from this section.

car
# III/VC/SA
ModelName, FirstColor1, SecondColor1, FirstColor2, SecondColor2, FirstColor3, SecondColor3, FirstColor4, SecondColor4, FirstColor5, SecondColor5, FirstColor6, SecondColor6, FirstColor7, SecondColor7, FirstColor8, SecondColor8
# IV
ModelName, FirstColor1, SecondColor1, FirstColor2, SecondColor2, FirstColor3, SecondColor3, FirstColor4, SecondColor4, FirstColor5, SecondColor5, FirstColor6, SecondColor6, FirstColor7, SecondColor7, FirstColor8, SecondColor8, FirstColor9, SecondColor9, FirstColor10, SecondColor10, FirstColor11, SecondColor11, FirstColor12, SecondColor12, FirstColor13, SecondColor13, FirstColor14, SecondColor14, FirstColor15, SecondColor15, FirstColor16, SecondColor16, FirstColor17, SecondColor17, FirstColor18, SecondColor18, FirstColor19, SecondColor19, FirstColor20, SecondColor20, FirstColor21, SecondColor21, FirstColor22, SecondColor22, FirstColor23, SecondColor23, FirstColor24, SecondColor24
end

	Identifier	Type	Description
A	ModelName	string	Model name of vehicle.
B	FirstColor1	integer	First car color of first pair. The value represents the index number in the col section starting with 0.
C	SecondColor1	integer	Second car color of first pair. The value represents the index number in the col section starting with 0.
D	FirstColor2	integer	First car color of second pair.
E	SecondColor2	integer	Second car color of second pair.
Repeat for a total of 8 pairs for GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas; and 24 pairs for GTA IV.

It is not required to fill all 8 or 24 pairs of colors for each model; the games will ignore unused pairs. It is not even required for a model to have an entry in this section; the games will default to the pair 0,0.

car3

Only used in GTA IV, the car3 section contains the same data as car section from previous games but has a third value, the specular colour.

car3
ModelName, FirstColor1, SecondColor1, SpecularColor1, FirstColor2, SecondColor2, SpecularColor2, FirstColor3, SecondColor3, SpecularColor3, FirstColor4, SecondColor4, SpecularColor4, FirstColor5, SecondColor5, SpecularColor5, FirstColor6, SecondColor6, SpecularColor6, FirstColor7, SecondColor7, SpecularColor7, FirstColor8, SecondColor8, SpecularColor8, FirstColor9, SecondColor9, SpecularColor9, FirstColor10, SecondColor10, SpecularColor10, FirstColor11, SecondColor11, SpecularColor11, FirstColor12, SecondColor12, SpecularColor12, FirstColor13, SecondColor13, SpecularColor13, FirstColor14, SecondColor14, SpecularColor14, FirstColor15, SecondColor15, SpecularColor15, FirstColor16, SecondColor16, SpecularColor16, FirstColor17, SecondColor17, SpecularColor17, FirstColor18, SecondColor18, SpecularColor18, FirstColor19, SecondColor19, SpecularColor19, FirstColor20, SecondColor20, SpecularColor20, FirstColor21, SecondColor21, SpecularColor21, FirstColor22, SecondColor22, SpecularColor22, FirstColor23, SecondColor23, SpecularColor23, FirstColor24, SecondColor24, SpecularColor24
end

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