OpenIV, CodeWalker and Sollumz — which one you actually need
Three tools that overlap enough to confuse everyone. What each is genuinely for, and which one your job needs.
All three open GTA 5 files. They are not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one is how people end up rebuilding a weapon to change a colour.
#OpenIV — the archive browser
OpenIV was built for exploring the game's own archives: opening .rpf files, finding assets, extracting them. It reads textures and can put them back, which is why it is the tool most people meet first.
What it is not is a modelling tool. It shows you a .ydr; it does not let you change its geometry.
#CodeWalker — the world and asset editor
CodeWalker goes further: it renders the world, opens .ydr models and .ytd dictionaries, and can import and export both. For weapon work it is the practical desktop choice, because it handles the resource formats directly rather than through a conversion.
It is also where you go to inspect a UV map when you want to know why a decal is landing somewhere unexpected.
#Sollumz — the Blender bridge
Sollumz is a Blender add-on that imports and exports GTA 5 formats, so you can model in Blender and export something the game will load. This is the route for building a weapon, changing its shape, or re-unwrapping a mesh whose UVs mirror the receiver.
It is the heaviest of the three to learn and the only one that can change what a weapon is rather than how it looks.
#Which one for which job
- Extract a texture to look at it — OpenIV or CodeWalker
- Replace a texture inside a .ytd — CodeWalker, or a browser tool that preserves the format for you
- Inspect a UV map — CodeWalker
- Change the shape of a weapon — Blender with Sollumz
- Fix mirrored UVs — Blender with Sollumz, and it is real work
- Put a logo on an existing weapon — none of them are required
Questions
Do I need any of these to use a weapon pack?
Which is best for texture editing?
Is Sollumz worth learning?
Ready to pick a map?
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Relevant to what you just read
Look it up while you work
The reference tables this guide leans on, free and without an account.
- The 100 blip colour indexesEvery index SetBlipColour accepts, with the hex value the radar actually draws.
- The map modding glossary38 terms — file formats, radar parts, framework words — each with a one-line answer first.
- The same tables as JSON and CSVFree downloads, CORS open, no account and no API key — ship the list inside your own resource instead of scraping a page.