Paths (GTA SA)
The 64 nodes*.dat files in gta3.img (or any other archive) contain the vehicle and ped paths and related information for GTA SA. There's a file for every 750×750 unit square, starting at the south-west corner (-3000, -3000) in row-major order.
Contents
Purpose
It is believed that these files were generated by some sort of path compiler during development of the game, and represent the processing-friendly binary data structures otherwise generated at runtime by previous versions of the game from files like paths.ipl and related. These files are still present in SA, but unused.
Since the built-in path compiler has apparently been removed from the game code or at least made nonfunctional, custom tools and techniques are required to generate new paths for SA.
Node files are streamed by the game — only the active area and those surrounding it are loaded at a time. Thus corrupt files only lead to a game crash when the player enters the specific area.
The separate nodes*.dat files in the data\paths\ directory are ignored by the game.
File Format
Each file starts with a header, followed by 7 distinct sections.
Paths are stored as double-linked (thus undirected) graphs in adjacency list representation. There can be connections between separate areas.
The following data types and structures are used within this article:
- INT8/UINT8 - signed/unsigned 8 bit integer (1 byte)
- INT16/UINT16 - signed/unsigned 16 bit integer (2 byte)
- INT32/UINT32 - signed/unsigned 32 bit integer (4 byte)
- FLOAT - single precision floating point number (4 byte)
Header
The header contains information about the content of the various sections in the file. It has a size of 20 bytes.
4b - UINT32 - number of nodes (section 1) 4b - UINT32 - number of vehicle nodes (section 1a) 4b - UINT32 - number of ped nodes (section 1a) 4b - UINT32 - number of navi nodes (section 2) 4b - UINT32 - number of links (section 3/5/6)
Note: Sections related to links (3/5/6) have the same number of entries. These entries belong together and can be treated as one record by editors.
Section 1 - Path Nodes
The first section contains the node data for the paths. They are grouped by type: the list of vehicle nodes (cars, boats, race tracks) is followed by the ped nodes. Each node entry has a size of 28 bytes.
4b - UINT32 - Mem Address, unused 4b - UINT32 - always zero, unused 6b - INT16[3] - Position (XYZ), see below 2b - INT16 - unknown, always 0x7FFE 2b - UINT16 - Link ID 2b - UINT16 - Area ID (same as in filename) 2b - UINT16 - Node ID (increments by 1) 1b - UINT8 - Path Width 1b - UINT8 - Node Type 4b - UINT32 - Flags
- Mem Address
- These might have been pointers to path segment structures inside R*'s path compiler. Apparently they are ignored by the game and can be set to zero.
- Position
- This is the position of the node in world coordinates. To convert the signed words to floating point values divide them by 128.
- Link ID
- Index into sections 3, 5 and 6; used to find adjacent nodes.
- Area ID and Node ID
- Informational data, probably only used by the path generator. Area ID is always the same as the number in the filename, and Node ID is used to identify the node.
- Path Width
- This is used to modify the width of a path. The default value is 0 (zero). To convert the signed word to a floating point value divide it by 8 (unconfirmed).
- Node Type
- Defines some kind of group for the nodes. For vehicle nodes a value of 1 is for cars, 2 is for boats and higher values are for race tracks and other mission applications. For ped nodes there seems to be a distinct ID per village/city/area.
- Flags
- The first 4 bits define the number of links to adjacent nodes. The other bits are used to characterize node behavior, for more information see the table below.
Node flag bits, from low to high:
0-3 - link count T 4,5 - traffic reduction (0 = full, 1 = medium, 2 = low, 3 = none) A 6 - road blocks? B 7 - boats C 8 - no traffic (emergency vehicles only) D 9 - zero E 10 - unknown, grove house entrance paths ? F 11 - zero G 12 - is not highway ? H 13 - is highway ? - these two are 00 for peds and never 11 for cars (so G = !H) I 14 - zero J 15 - zero K 16 - unknown, usually 1, except for 9 nodes L 17 - unknown, usually 1, except for those without K and several more M 18 - unknown, usually 1, similar to K and L, seems to exclude both N 19 - unknown, usually 1, similar to M O 20 - sort of road block, rarely used P 21 - parking Q 22 - zero R 23 - similar to O 24-31 - zero
The following statistics on flag usage, grouped by path type, might be useful for further research:
Peds Cars Boats Tracks # 37650 27083 1507 1997 A none 1.44% none none B none none all 4.46% C 15.99% 22.95% 15.79% 60.89% D none none none none E 0.05% none none none F none none none none G none 90.63% all 94.39% H none 9.37% none none I none none none none J none none none none K 99.99% 99.98% all all L 97.41% 98.35% all all M 97.41% 98.33% all all N 97.23% 98% all all O none 0.03% none none P none 0.79% none 0.05% Q none none none none R none 0.06% none none
The second section contains additional nodes, referred to as navigational nodes (navi nodes) in this article. Each record has a size of 14 bytes.
Navi nodes are used to define additional information for vehicle path segments; they are not used by ped paths. They are usually positioned between two adjacent vehicle nodes on an interpolated curve.
4b - INT16[2] - Position (XY), see below 2b - UINT16 - Area ID 2b - UINT16 - Node ID 2b - INT8[2] - Direction (XY), see below 4b - UINT32 - Flags
- Position
- This is the position of the navi node in world coordinates. To convert the signed words to floating point values divide them by 128.
- Area ID and Node ID
- These identify the target node a navi node is attached to.
- Direction
- This is a normalized vector pointing towards above mentioned target node, thus defining the general direction of the path segment. The vector components are represented by signed bytes with values within the interval [-100, 100], which corresponds to floating point values [-1.0, 1.0].
- Flags
- These are used to characterize path segment behavior, for more information see the table below.
0- 7 - unknown 8-10 - number of left lanes 11-13 - number of right lanes 14 - unknown/intersection behavior 15 - zero/unused 16,17 - traffic light behavior 18-31 - zero/unused
- Right (forward) and left (backward) lanes are relative to the direction vector.
- Experience has shown that navi nodes with attachments across area borders don't work too well. A possible solution is to attach them to the last instead of the next node, reverse the direction and exchange the lane numbers (if different) and other direction dependent flags. However, this will never work if previous, navi and next node are located in different areas each.
- Traffic light behavior can be a value from 0 to 2, where 1 and 2 are related to North-South and West-East cycles for traffic light synchronization. The intersection behavior flag is somewhat related to this; it is only used if the target node is in the center of the intersection, but this has not been tested yet.
Section 3 - Links
These are links to adjacent nodes, 4 bytes per entry.
2b - UINT16 - Area ID 2b - UINT16 - Node ID
Section 4 - Filler
This section hold data of constant size and content; its purpose is unknown. These 768 bytes are filled with the repeating data pattern 0xFF,0xFF,0x00,0x00 (192x), but this can be filled with zeros as well.
These are links to adjacent navi nodes, 2 bytes per entry. For indices from ped nodes (in section 1b) these are zero (unused).
2b - UINT16 - lower 10 bit are the Node ID, upper 6 bit the Area ID
Section 6 - Link Lengths
These are the distances between linked nodes in full units, 1 byte per entry. They are essential for path finding algorithms.
1b - UINT8 - Length
Section 7 - unknown
Unknown length, unknown content. This section is filled mainly with zeros, but there are exceptions of bytes with very low values greater than zero. It is assumed that this section is actually unused and might just be garbage.
Tools & Scripts
- SA Path Editor (WIP) by [[User:JGuntherS@NL|JGuntherS@NL]] – Only useful for editing existing path data.
- Path Compiler (WIP) by ocram88 – Allows to create linear ped paths by generating waypoints from inside the game.
- Path Tool (WIP) by steve-m – Comes bundled with a MaxScript to export ped and vehicle paths from Max (by using spline shapes).
- APE - Aschratts Path-Editor (WIP) by Aschratt – Based on a memhack and including a decompiler it is possible to add path to the existing or to create completely new from ingame!
- Path Script by Deniska – A script for 3DSMax that creates path files directly.
See Also
- Compiled Path Nodes – original discussion thread on GTAForums
