[Behind the Scenes] GTA 3 - Cut First Person Mode - Why it took me 3 years to make (Patreon)

It took me about 3 years to make this video. Do you know why? Here is my story!

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I strongly recommend you to watch the video first, because you won't understand what I am talking here about :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvobNToCDLs

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  ~~~ 2015 

Everything started in 2015, when I saw one or two threads about mysterious FPS mode in GTA 3. For instance, here is a thread from 2011 where someone asked if there was a way to make it work.

Someone gave him a script and I decided to test it in-game. 

I was pretty upset, because as you already know, the FPS mode in general is broken. I was mainly sad, because you can't see your damn weapons while shooting. I thought, what if there is a way to fix that? Damn, it would be an interesting thing to show! So I decided to investigate this feature in-depth. 

There was no point to make a video since FPS cameras were bad. Back in those days I thought that there might be more FPS scripts and I had a hope that they work better. 

Sadly, the second script I found didn't work better, but I noticed that it used different camera mode and it worked the same apart from having a huge M16 crosshair. 

If the first script I had used "41st" camera (1st person cam), then the second one had "42nd" (M16 fps cam).

In those days I didn't know anything about the rest FPS cameras... I always thought that there was just one...  I didn't even know their names to begin with... 

After some time I decided to check all in-game cameras by changing the right value in the FPS script I had. As a result, I noticed "44th" camera and you can see it in action here:

https://youtu.be/O9o3VDucn6A

In those days I didn't know that "44th" camera is "MODE_EDITOR" and it has nothing to do with the FPS mode. 

Why did I thought that it was the right FPS camera? Well, by using this camera you CAN actually see your weapon and it looked AMAZING. I was so astonished that I made a post on GTA forums. Maybe someone will remember it :P

The problem is, this camera has more unique bugs. For instance, if you walk forward, the camera goes up. Furthermore, sometimes you DO see your weapon and sometimes you don't. Everything depends on the angle and mouse movement. It is hard to explain, but the camera doesn't stay in one place, it moves like a number "8". I have no idea why, but it sticks in Claude's head...

In those days, I wanted to fix it, because I thought that it was more reliable. Heck, I didn't know that I am messing with "MODE_EDITOR" and it was a waste of time.

I asked "FireHead" and others if they could fix it, so I could at least film some gameplay. FH said that it is "MODE_EDITOR", but I insisted to to fix it. Others said that the camera code is very complex and they don't know how to fix or achieve it. 

So yeah... I still had no opportunity to film the gameplay, because these cameras were garbage.

Interesting thing is, I already knew about weapon.dat, FPS animations, hidden sub-menu andVice City leftovers. 

What is more interesting, it was going to be a text video and I still have two frames on my PC. 

As you can see, I wanted to start this video with E3 footage, because I thought that it had something to do with the cut feature.

After a while, FireHead gave me a hex value, which I could use to move the "44th" camera, but it didn't help much and I decided to abandon the video. 

Fun fact, while testing GTA 3 cameras on PS2, I made a strange loop and it gave me this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlUT1XVcsJg

 ~~~ 2016

In 2016 I found an interesting magazine scan in my archives. Someone asked a developer if there is going to be a FPS mode in PC version of GTA 3 (or VC I don't remember). The dev said no, because GTA is not a shooter. Basically this was an answer why the FPS mode was cut from the game. I decided to return to this video.

Moreover, I finally received a message from Mr. Jago, who converted me FPS_Rocket animation. A long time ago I asked him if he could convert it so I could use it in GTA 3.

The reason why I didn't use it in 2018 is because if you use Rocket launcher, protagonist doesn't play any animation.

But anyways, I tried to ask more people and see if there is a way to restore FPS mode. After receiving predictable answers I decided to abandon this video once again.

  ~~~ 2017

In 2017 I decided to make a poll and see what people want to see on my channel.

Turns out, people were very interested in FPS mode and I started to look at this feature once again. Since it was going to be a voice over video, I decided to change the introduction and start my video with the magazine scan I told you about. 

The problem was, I realized that I lost it... I suddenly remembered that in 2016 I decided to get rid of some files to save some space on my HDD. I assume, I deleted some files by a pure accident... No clue, honestly.

After realizing I made a stupid mistake, my motivation went down and I decided to make "GTA SA - Steam Vs PC" instead, because I made the second poll.

Before abandoning this video once again, I noticed that hidden "show head bob" option actually works in-game. 

 ~~~ 2018

When my channel had 100k subs, I decided to make 10 pictures with 10 interesting facts about my channel. One of them had this information: 

A friend of mine saw it and said that he was able to make his own FPS script. He said that his script

replaces the standard camera with the fps camera [function - CCam::Process_1rstPersonPedOnPC], edits distance and then fov 

As we know, this function is the main function used by FPS cameras and I was pretty amazed that his script brings 3rd person controls to the FPS mode. On the other hand, just look at the camera angle. Using this script made me dizzy.

The whole thing was still messy and I decided to pass his script to FireHead and see if he could fix or improve it. Moreover, I asked him if he could investigate FPS code in-depth. 

As a result, he decided to make Claude's head transparent and fix a small bug in the script and that's it. Nothing much was changed.After 3 long weeks FireHead showed me his FPS finds and my investigation began. At least I had more information to mess around with.

I remember that I had an idea to make two separate videos; analyzing broken FPS cameras and showing plausible FPS mode by using previously mentioned script. This idea was shortly scrapped, because I found a way to "fix" original FPS cameras.

Remember I said that I messed around with "44th" camera and FH gave me a hex value so I could relocate it? Guess what, I used this value to move original FPS cameras and I noticed that I could see my weapons now. It was a pure luck!

I also noticed that "show headbob" option makes cameras to look better. 

On the other hand, I could see Claude's head now, so I decided to make it transparent via model editing. 

Of course the FPS mode was still broken, but at least I could show it now. 

After implementing these "ugly" fixes, I asked myself, why should I use someone's script if I can show original R*'s concept and make one video instead of two?

After some time I decided to involve Silent and aap and see if they can find something new in the code. 

Sadly, they didn't find anything new, but Silent was able to restore cockpit camera. He also gave me a clue why it was cut/changed.

So, after that I was able to talk about E3 video and explain what we saw there.

After showing a test video to my "focus" group, two of them asked why I didn't say anything about "yellow" tint. We agreed that R* probably used this filter to hide a strange horizontal line I showed you in the video. Honestly, I am not 100% sure about it.

I decided to ask Silent about it, he said:

So yeah...

From the very beginning I didn't want to cover Vice City, because I knew that FPS mode doesn't work there so well. However, after some time I changed my mind and decided to show it. The more I investigated this feature in Vice City, the more I had to say. Moreover, Xinerki was able to fix them.

By the way, the bug with switching cameras was found by a pure accident, so I decided to talk about it as well.Basically, a lot of facts I told you in my video were found by a pure accident.

~~~Cut information

I decided to avoid explaining some "boring" things. 

For instance, I decided to avoid explaining that the third person cameras probably work together with the "4th" camera "MODE_FOLLOWPED" and it is used both in cars and on foot. I think, there is an "x" thing in the code, which controls these 3rd person cameras. 

Why do I think so? Well, if you manually enable, for instance, 3rd person M16 camera, it will work partially. It will have almost the same bugs as M16 FPS camera.

It means, the game "somehow" controls these third person cameras and no one knows how.  Moreover, no one didn't find anything similar in those FPS cameras. Maybe it wasn't coded. I think, it might be the reason why these FPS cameras don't work in cars and overall are broken. Remember, that I brought them back by hacking the game. Unfortunately, there is no other way to enable them.Since it is my theory and everyone said, that the camera code is very complex, I decided to cut this information from my video.Why not to replace 3rd person cameras with RUNABOUT ones?   aap and Silent tried it. The game crashed and they didn't have an idea how to fix that.

~~~Results

It took me 3 years to make this video and I am very proud to show you our result. Maybe it was the right thing to postpone this video as I became more experienced as well as found a way to show you these cameras. I am very grateful to all people, who helped me in this video.

 ~~~Mod

By the way, stay tuned for the second part of this video, where I will show you the FPS script. But that's not the end! You will be able to download it and try it! 

Right now we are trying our best to improve it. Sadly, no ETA on this one.

~~~End

I hope you enjoyed these behind the scenes and stay tuned for more.