ZONE

ZONE (IPL section)

Supported games:
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 in GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, and GTA IV. 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

zone
# III/VC/SA
Name, Type, X1, Y1, Z1, X2, Y2, Z2, Level
# IV
Name, Type, X1, Y1, Z1, X2, Y2, Z2, Level, Text
end

		Identifier	Type	Description
A		Name	string	Name and text of zone used from the .gxt file. Stick to 7 char max
B		Type	integer	Type of zone (see below)
C,D,E		X1, Y1, Z1	float[3]	A point which corresponds to the corner of the box, usually the lower left
F,G,H		X2, Y2, Z2	float[3]	A point which corresponds to the opposite corner of the box, usually the upper right
I		Level	integer	The level number (see below)
-	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

A map of GTA III's gta3.zon areas, including the hardcoded CITYZON area

• Level number 1: Portland
• Level number 2: Staunton
• Level 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 original main.scm uses this file throughout the script so you cannot simply delete the lines in the file to prevent the zone's text from popping up in the game without editing the script file. The script file uses this to control how cars, peds, and gangs spawn in the map, and to check if you are inside the zone. There is a zone of this zone type hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

CITYZON 0 -4000.0 -4000.0 -500.0 4000.0 4000.0 500.0 0

map.zon

• Type: 3

The map.zon controls the loading of an entire island as you travel from one island to another. There is a zone of this zone type hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

THEMAP 3 -4000.0 -4000.0 -500.0 4000.0 4000.0 500.0 0

Vice City

A map of Vice City's info.zon areas, including the hardcoded CITYINF area

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

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

info.zon

• Type: 2

The info.zon, with the help of the main.scm, controls how cars, peds, and gangs spawn in the map. The original main.scm uses this file throughout the script so you cannot simply delete the lines in the file without editing the script file. This zone uses level number 1. There is a zone of this zone type hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

CITYINF 2 -2400.0 -2000.0 -500.0 1600.0 2000.0 500.0 0

map.zon

• Type: 3

The map.zon controls the loading of an entire island as you travel from one island to another. You can disable the loading of the islands by deleting the entire section. There is a zone of this zone type hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

THEMAP 3 -2400.0 -2000.0 -500.0 1600.0 2000.0 500.0 0

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 of this zone type 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 original main.scm uses this file throughout the script so you cannot simply delete the lines in the file to prevent the zone's text from popping up in the game without editing the script file. The script file uses this to check if you are inside the zone. This zone generally used level number 1 but that column does not seem to have any effect.

San Andreas

• Level number 1: Los Santos
• Level number 2: San Fierro
• Level 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 uses this file so you cannot just delete the lines in the file to prevent the zone's text from popping up in the game without editing the main.scm. This zone uses level number 1 only.

Map.zon

A map of San Andreas' map.zon areas, including the hardcoded THEMAP area

• 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. There is a zone of this zone type hardcoded into the game that would have an entry similar to this line:

THEMAP 3 -3000.0 -3000.0 -2000.0 3000.0 3000.0 2000.0 0 UNUSED

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.

Tools

• KEd by JernejL, can only view zones

External links

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