Red40 Clothing Repacker

Red40 Clothing Repacker is a .NET CLI for analyzing GTA V/FiveM clothing resources, merging ped variation collections into a generated resource, and optionally applying those changes back to your working resource set with a reversible backup manifest.

It supports:

• Scanning resource folders for .ymt and .ymt.xml clothing data
• Exporting binary .ymt files to XML for inspection
• Generating a merge plan as JSON
• Building a new merged resource without touching the originals
• Applying the plan to your resources with backup metadata
• Restoring everything from the backup manifest

Red40 Development

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NEW COMPONENT LIMIT PER YMT

As of this commit, FiveM syncs component drawable indices with 8 bits. Runtime testing shows that streamed collection index 255 still does not load, so generated YMTs are capped at 255 drawables per component, using local indices 0-254. This change is component-only: numAvailProps is still an unsigned byte count, so generated YMTs are also capped at 255 aggregate props across all prop anchors.

New GUI now available

• Download the release version approriate for your architecture (Windows/Linux x86-64 builds)

• Launch and follow the steps in the help button

• Enable Optimize YMT usage before Analyze if you want the planner to rearrange component/prop lanes across generated YMTs to reduce the target collection count. Leave it off to keep source packs grouped more conservatively. Note that if you have a large number of a single component such as JBIB this will tend to leave ymts with little to no other items in them.

• Now featuring a graphical representation of the repacked ymts

• Create a compact support archive with Create Diagnostic Bundle.... The archive preserves .meta, .ymt, .xml, and .lua contents, replaces all other file contents with a small placeholder, and omits dot-directories.

CLI directions

Download and Install

Option 1: Download built binaries

Download the release version approriate for your architecture (Windows/Linux x86-64 builds)

Copy the executable to your clothing folder

Option 2: Clone and run from source

Prerequisites:

• Git
• .NET 10 SDK

Clone the repository with the CodeWalker submodule:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Red40-Development/red40_clothing_packer.git
cd red40_clothing_packer

Run the CLI directly:

dotnet run --project src/ClothingRepacker.Cli -- --help

Command Summary

If you are running from source, use dotnet run --project src/ClothingRepacker.Cli -- ... instead.

ClothingRepacker.Cli analyze --resources <path> --target-resource <name> --out <plan.json>
  [--max-drawables-per-component <1-255>] [--max-drawables-per-prop <1-255>]
  [--optimize-ymt-usage]
ClothingRepacker.Cli analyze --resource <path_to_resource> [--resource <path_to_resource> ...]
  --generated-root <folder> --target-resource <name> --out <plan.json>
  [--max-drawables-per-component <1-255>] [--max-drawables-per-prop <1-255>]
  [--optimize-ymt-usage]

ClothingRepacker.Cli build --plan <plan.json> --out <folder>
  [--include-ymt-xml <true|false>] [--include-debug-client <true|false>]
ClothingRepacker.Cli apply --plan <plan.json> --backup-root <folder> [--copy-resources-to-output]
ClothingRepacker.Cli restore --backup-manifest <backup-manifest.json>
ClothingRepacker.Cli validate --plan <plan.json>
ClothingRepacker.Cli validate --resources <path>
ClothingRepacker.Cli validate --resource <path_to_resource> [--resource <path_to_resource> ...] --generated-root <folder>
ClothingRepacker.Cli report --plan <plan.json> [--out <report.txt>]
ClothingRepacker.Cli export-xml --folder <path> [--overwrite]
ClothingRepacker.Cli diagnostics --folder <path> --out <bundle.zip>

By default, the CLI checks the latest GitHub release when a command starts and prints a notice if a newer version is available. Add --no-version-check to any command, or set RED40_NO_VERSION_CHECK=1, to skip the check.

Reproducible releases

Release publishing enables deterministic .NET compilation, deterministic source paths, and CI build metadata. The release workflow also publishes every target twice and compares SHA-256 hashes for all generated files. A mismatch fails the workflow before the release assets are collected.

To run the same check locally after restoring the solution, use:

python3 scripts/verify-reproducible-build.py

How to use

Assume your clothing resources live in the same directory as the executable.

Open a terminal (Powershell/Terminal) and navigate to your folder with all your clothing assets such as [clothing]

Create a merge plan:

ClothingRepacker.Cli analyze \
  --resources . \
  --target-resource zz_merged_clothing_meta \
  --out plan.json

Or pick exact resource folders instead of scanning every child folder under one parent:

ClothingRepacker.Cli analyze \
  --resource ./gang_flags \
  --resource ./gang_outfits \
  --generated-root . \
  --target-resource zz_merged_clothing_meta \
  --out plan.json

When using one or more --resource options, each value must be an actual resource folder. --generated-root controls where apply will copy the generated merged resource.

By default, analyze keeps each source YMT's component and prop lanes together unless a source exceeds the configured drawable limits. The prop limit applies to the aggregate prop metadata in a generated YMT, across all prop anchors. Add --optimize-ymt-usage to let the planner split source lanes across generated YMTs when that can produce fewer target collections. This can reduce YMT usage, but the resulting plan may mix pieces of the same source pack across multiple generated collections.

Plans are versioned snapshots of the selected inputs. Analyze records SHA-256 fingerprints for every source file used by Build or Apply. If a plan was created by an older schema, or any recorded source is missing or changed, Validate, Build, and Apply reject it before creating output or backup directories. Run Analyze again instead of editing around the error.

Validate the generated plan:

ClothingRepacker.Cli validate --plan plan.json

Generate a text report showing how source YMT component/prop ranges will land in each merged target YMT:

ClothingRepacker.Cli report --plan plan.json --out repack-report.txt

Build the merged resource into a separate output folder (disable the ymt-xml or debug commands as appropriate):

ClothingRepacker.Cli build \
  --plan plan.json \
  --out . \
  --include-ymt-xml true \
  --include-debug-client true

This writes a generated resource like:

• ./zz_merged_clothing_meta/fxmanifest.lua
• ./zz_merged_clothing_meta/stream/*.ymt
• ./zz_merged_clothing_meta/stream/*.ymt.xml
• ./zz_merged_clothing_meta/data/*.meta
• ./zz_merged_clothing_meta/client/validate_collections.lua

The two optional build toggles both default to true:

• --include-ymt-xml false skips writing the preview stream/*.ymt.xml files
• --include-debug-client false skips generating client/validate_collections.lua and removes its client_script line from fxmanifest.lua

Build replaces only the generated target resource, not the entire --out folder. Tool-created targets contain a .clothing-repacker-owned marker. Rebuilding produces an exact target with no stale YMT, XML, metadata, or client files. If the target already exists without that marker, Build refuses to overwrite it; move or remove the directory yourself after verifying its contents.

Creature metadata is preserved and remapped when it has a matching source ShopPedApparel creatureMetaData reference. When multiple source shop metadata files share one creature metadata file, the generated shop metadata keeps that relationship and points to one shared generated creature metadata YMT. Creature metadata without a matching shop metadata reference is treated as broken, warned about during analyze, skipped during build, and only moved into the backup during apply.

pedalternatevariations.meta and first_person_alternates.meta files are detected, remapped to generated collection names and drawable indexes, written to the generated resource data folder, and declared in the generated manifest with their FiveM data file types.

Apply the plan to your actual resource set:

ClothingRepacker.Cli apply \
  --plan plan.json \
  --backup-root ./backups

To leave the source resources untouched, apply against a copied output set instead:

ClothingRepacker.Cli apply \
  --plan plan.json \
  --backup-root ./backups \
  --copy-resources-to-output

apply does three important things:

• Renames stream files according to the plan
• Copies original source .ymt files into a timestamped backup folder, then removes them from the source resources
• Creates the generated merged resource under the plan's generated root. For --resources <parent> plans this remains the sibling folder next to your resources root; for repeated --resource plans it is the --generated-root folder.

With --copy-resources-to-output, apply first copies the source resource folders into the plan's generated root and performs the stream renames and source .ymt removals on those copies. Use an output root separate from the original resources.

Apply uses the same ownership rule for generated resources and copied resource destinations. It stages complete directories before publishing them and refuses an existing unowned destination. Source fingerprint and destination checks finish before the backup run directory is created.

How to Undo What the Tool Did

Every apply run writes a versioned backup-manifest.json in a collision-resistant timestamp-and-random-suffix directory under your chosen --backup-root.

Example:

./backups/2026-06-16T103000Z-2f1c.../backup-manifest.json

To undo an apply, run:

ClothingRepacker.Cli restore \
  --backup-manifest ./backups/2026-06-16T103000Z-2f1c.../backup-manifest.json

Before changing anything, Restore validates every manifest path, backup hash, renamed stream file, source destination, and generated output file. A missing, modified, or conflicting file stops the complete restore with the affected path in the error; Restore does not delete the modified file or apply a partial action list.

For current manifests, Restore:

• Deletes only generated resources recorded by Apply and carrying the tool ownership marker
• Puts backed-up source YMT and metadata files back in their original locations
• Moves renamed stream files back to their original names

Legacy list-only manifests remain readable with reduced authority. They can restore source backup files and stream renames only when their recorded hashes match and backup files remain inside the manifest directory. Generated-resource deletions are reported as skipped manual-cleanup actions because legacy manifests do not record trustworthy roots.

export will:

• Export .ymt files to XML

ClothingRepacker.Cli export-xml --folder .

Create a compact ZIP suitable for uploading with a support request:

ClothingRepacker.Cli diagnostics --folder ./my-clothing-resource --out ./red40-diagnostics.zip

The bundle preserves the folder structure and the contents of .meta, .ymt, .xml, and .lua files. Other files keep their names but contain only .; dot-directories such as .git and .vscode are omitted.

NOTE:

• Keep the entire timestamped backup directory until you have verified the restore worked
• Prefer running build first so you can inspect output before modifying your real resources with apply
• Do not modify generated or renamed files before Restore. Hash conflicts are intentionally preserved for manual review.

Credits

• Red40 Development (c) 2026
• dexyfex/CodeWalker

This project uses code and file-format handling from CodeWalker. Credit and thanks to the CodeWalker project for making GTA V/FiveM resource inspection and serialization work possible.