ZONE

ZONE (IPL section)

Supported games:	GTA 3 GTA VC GTA SA GTA LCS GTA VCS GTA IV
IPL Sections: 2DFX • AUZO • BLOK • CARS • CULL • ENEX • GRGE INST • JUMP • LINK • LODM • MLO+ • MULT • OCCL PATH • PICK • RTFX • SLOW • TCYC • VNOD • ZONE

ZONE is a section in the item placement file. It creates an area in the game used to show the text of the zone being entered, to load islands, and to create locations to spawn specific vehicles and pedestrians. The section is mainly placed in .zon files, which use the IPL format, but it can also be placed in .ipl files.

Format

		Identifier	Type	Description
A		Name	string	Name and text of zone used from the .gxt file
B		Type	integer	Type of zone
C,D,E		X1,Y1,Z1	float[3]	The bottom left corner of the zone
F,G,H		X2,Y2,Z2	float[3]	The top right corner of the zone
I		Island	integer	The island number
-	J	Text	string	Text of the zone used from the GXT file

Note that for San Andreas, the text of the zone to be displayed is also related to by an internally hardcoded table which links that zone name to its respective audio description for the police radio. This is actually the cause of a bug in the game - the zone 'SUN' (which is correctly named 'Temple' in the GXT file) gets announced as 'Sunnyside' on the police radio. This is because the internal table has two consecutive entries called 'SUN' and only the second one gets used, meaning whenever the player is in a zone named and defined as 'SUN' in this file, the police will always announce this as 'Sunnyside' since 'SUN' points to that audio entry.

Major files

Most of these zone files are saved into the game save so any changes made to these files require starting a new game.

GTA III

• Island number 1: Portland
• Island number 2: Staunton
• Island number 3: Shoreside Vale

Gta3.zon

• Type: 0, 1, or 2

The gta3.zon controls the text of the zone that shows up in the game as you enter a new zone. The main.scm uses this to check if you are in the zone. The gta3.zon can be viewed through KEd but it can be only edited by hand. The main.scm<main.scm.

Map.zon

• Type: 3

The map.zon controls the loading of an entire island as you travel from one island to another. It tells the game where to load. The map.zon can be viewed through KEd but it can be only edited by hand.

Vice City

A map of Vice City's navig.zon areas, including the hardcoded VICE_C area

• Island number 1: Vice City Beach
• Island number 2: Vice City Mainland

Info.zon

• Type: 2

The info.zon, with the help of the main.scm, controls which pedestrian and vehicles spawn in that specific zone. The info.zon can be viewed through KEd but it can be only edited by hand. The main.scm uses this file so you cannot just delete the lines in the file without editing the main.scm. This zone uses island number 1.

Map.zon

• Type: 3

The map.zon controls the loading of an entire island as you travel from one island to another. It tells the game where to load. The map.zon can be viewed through KEd but it can be only edited by hand. You can make the loading of the islands by deleting the entire section.

Navig.zon

• Type: 0 or 1

The navig.zon controls the text of the zone that shows up in the game as you enter a new zone. A zone of type 1 means that the text of that zone will take priority if there are more than one overlapping zones (Junk Yard over Escobar International in this case). There is a zone hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

VICE_C 0 -2400.0 -2000.0 -500.0 1600.0 2000.0 500.0 0

The main.scm uses this to check if you are in the zone. The navig.zon can be viewed through KEd but it can be only edited by hand. The main.scm<main.scm. This zone generally used island number 1 but that column does not seem to have any effect.

San Andreas

• Island number 1: Los Santos
• Island number 2: San Fierro
• Island number 3: Las Venturas

Info.zon

• Type: 0

The Info.zon controls the text of the zone that shows up in the game as you enter a new zone. It also controls which pedestrian and vehicles spawn in that specific zone, with the help of the main.scm. The main.scm<main.scm. This zone uses island number 1 only.

Map.zon

• Type: 3

The map.zon controls the island zones and also the type of cop car (LA,SF or LV) if there is no zone, it spawns the country cop car. The last value is always UNUSED for zones controlling the island-ID's. Normally you have all zone-names stored in the map.zon and the island-boundary-zones with their ID's in the map.zon. The last number is the Island-ID.

You can lock/unlock them using SCM.

GTA IV

GTA IV uses the same format like San Andreas, but the section identifier has been changed to mzon for type 0.

This section is incomplete. You can help by fixing and expanding it.

Useful tools

•  GTAForums: SA Zon script for 3DMax - by Jost_Vice
•  GTAForums: Map IO in Kams script pack - by Kam
•  GTAForums: (SA and IV) Zon-IO in GTA-IV script centre - by Gforce

External links

•  GTAForums: Map File Definitions
• San Andreas' info.zon map - by pdescobar