At the moment tools are somewhat limited for the series. Currently the only games that is documented as actually supporting modding with existing tools are Cars and Cars: Mater-National and only the PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and GameCube versions. That being said research is ongoing and pages will be updated as new discoveries are made.
Recommended tools[]
| Use case | Recommended Software |
|---|---|
| Extracting | Rainbow Studios PAK Tool |
| Text Editing | Notepad++, VS Code |
| Searching | Everything |
| Models | Noesis (with this plugin), Blender |
| Textures | dxt2dds, GIMP |
| Hex Editor[1] | HxD |
- QuickBMS is a generic file unpacker/repacker that works via scripts created for it. Use it in conjunction with this script to extract RES files and Cars: Race-O-Rama PSR/XBR files. Currently it is unable to recompile either, but that permalink will update should the author update the script. Use this script for Cars PSR/XBR files.
- The cars-research repository on GitHub, which contains a collection of open source tools, scripts, and mods for the Cars games. Some of the things that can be found here include: a command-line XBR/P3R extractor, a database of all(around 80%) of the filenames in the XBR, a BPB->PB converter, scripts for converting generic images to GCT and converting GCT->TEX0 and vice versa, a BINMCF extractor, a script for merging DSPs into ITLs, and a couple of in-development code patches. (The ones currently uploaded specifically target the Wii and use GCTRealMate (not related to the cars-specific texture format!), and they focus on adding characters to the DialogueList so they can have a voice at the character selection screen.)
- XMA Transform or ToWav.exe will decode XMA --> WAV.
- Cars archives can now be rebuilt using RePACKER
- Blender, which when used with the Cars-related add-ons found here, allows the user to import/export animations from Cars: Mater-National and Cars: Race-O-Rama. To download them, simply download the MOTLib.py, MOT_EXPORT.py, and MOT_IMPORT.py files, pack them into a zip file, and install the zip file as a Blender add-on in Preferences.
- ↑ Advanced features aren't currently needed, so any old editor will do. This will be used primarily for renaming things like materials and bones for a given character.