Mafia Custom Cars Tutorial

Introduction
This is intended to be the most complete tutorial on custom cars for the Mafia Game. Please excuse anything that is below your level, or anything that is over your head, as I am trying to make this useful for anyone.

Sections
1. Using Data Extractor ? A Necessary first step
2. Car Model Basics
3. Installing a new skin on an existing mode
4. Installing a new model, replacing an existing one
5. Creating new car colour models of your own

1. Using Data Extractor
Before you can do any serious modding in Mafia, you have to make the files available.
Available here at Lost Heaven are two versions of Data Extractor (downloads ? tools). If you have installed the 1.1 patch, then use Data Extractor v1.1, and Data Extractor (no version) if you have not installed a patch.

Just follow the instructions, and DE will create the folders you need to make your game ‘mod-able’. After it is finished, you will see several new folders in your Mafia directory, and it is these folders that your new cars will go.

2. Car Model Basics
In your Models folder, for each car in the game, you will see several models, i.e. cordph00.4ds. These are the models that Mafia uses to put the cars in the game.

You should note that a file ending in 00, 01, 02, 03, etc. are used when Tommy owns/drives the car, and the files ending in 10,11, 12 etc are for when the car is driven by any other character in the game, or parked on the street. Any time you mod a file, you should ensure the 01 file matches the 11 file etc, or the car will change whenever Tommy gets into a new car.

3. Installing a skin on an Existing Model
1. (optional) In your maps directory, rename the map you are going to replace, in case you want to undo the change
2. Copy the new skin into the Maps directory in your Mafia folder.
3. If they exist, you must delete any .dx? and any .565 files associated with that map, so that the game will know to replace those files. Note: this step is only necessary if those files exist, because if you are running mafia at a high enough setting, the game does not use these compressed files.
4. Restart Mafia, and enjoy your new skin.

4. Installing a new Model, Replacing an existing one
1. After you download a new file, you will find that it contains maps (usually .bmp files) and at least 1 model (.4ds file).
2. If you want to replace a specific car, you have to rename the .4ds file to match the existing car in the game. A complete list of car models is available at Lost Heaven.
3. Copy all the maps to your maps folder in mafia, and copy the .4ds files to your models folder. You may want to save the existing files by renaming them, in case you want to undo the change later.
4. If the model you are installing, only came with 1 model with a name ending in 00, then you must copy/paste/rename the model, to create a file ending in 10, so the car will look the same before and after Tommy gets into the car.
5. Restart Mafia, and if you want to check your work, look up the car you replaced in car cyclopedia.

5. Creating your own colour models.
Okay, you?ve downloaded your car, installed it in the game, but now every time you see the car, it is always the same colour. We can change this, but it does require a fair amount of skill on your part, and might best be left until you are comfortable editing files.

In car cyclopaedia, you can see that many, but not all cars in the game, have several colour options. You can never have more colours available, than the original model that you are replacing. In your models folder, the models for a car numbered 01,02,03 etc. are the colour variations for that model.

If you?re ready to try this, then here are the steps:

1. In the maps for your car, there will be a map that shows the car colour for this car. It varies from car to car, depending on the creator of the car, so some experimenting might be necessary, but others will be obvious.
2. You can use any program, i.e. paint, to change the colour of the car, and even change the colours of the details, as long as you do not alter the basic shape of the maps.
3. Save this file, under a different name, preferably one character different, (easier later) i.e. carparts.bmp becomes cerparts.bmp
4.For your new model, open the .4ds file with a hex editor. You can use the search to find the name of the map you have just changed in step 3. Replace the name of the old file with the new one (the one character thing helps here). Note that the same map can be referred to many times, and each one must be changed.
5. When you have replaced all the map references, you can save your file, with a new name. This new name should be the same as the old one, except having the next number in sequence, i.e. cordph00.4ds becomes cordph01.4ds.
6. Next is to copy/paste/rename your file, with the corresponding 10,11,12 file to create the other model necessary.
7. You can repeat the above steps, with new bitmap and .4ds files for each available slot, but remember, you can never have more colours than the original model.
8. Move all the files you created to the maps and models folder and you are ready to go.