Introduction to Scripting

In-game tools provided by the game like Director Mode and Rockstar Editor allow more creative spaces within GTA V. However, thanks to a large community of players who have been able to reverse engineer a big part of the game code, it is possible to gain even more control of the game world through scripts. By scripting you will be able to use functions and parameters that control the game world in much greater detail.

Preparation and Setup

Download Script Hook V, go to the bin folder and copy dinput8.dll and ScriptHookV.dll files into your GTA V directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto V.
Download Script Hook V dot net, copy the ScriptHookVDotNet.asi file and ScriptHookVDotNet3.dll files into your GTA V directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto V
Create a new folder in the GTA V directory and call it “scripts”.
Download and install Visual Studio Community. Open Visual Studio and check the .NET desktop development package and install it.
Run GTA V and test if Script Hook V is working by pressing F4. This should toggle the console view. Try to type Help() and press Enter to get a list of available commands.

Creating a Mod File

Open Visual Studio
Select File > New > Project
Select Visual C# and Class Library (.NET Framework)
Give a custom file name (e.g. moddingTutorial)
Rename public class Class1 as moddingTutorial in the right panel Solution Explorer and click Yes on the pop-up window
In the same panel go to References and click add References…
Click on Browse > browse to Downloads
Select ScriptHookVDotNet > ScriptHookVDotNet3.dll and add it
Go to Assemblies and search for “forms” and select System.Windows.forms
Search for “drawing” and select System.Drawing
In Solution Explorer right click on your project name and select Properties and Build Events.
In the Post-build event command line window write:

xcopy /Y "$(ProjectDir)bin\Debug\$(ProjectName).dll" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto V\scripts"

In your code file have the following lines at the very top:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;
using GTA;
using GTA.Math;
using GTA.Native;

Modify class moddingTutorial to the following:

namespace moddingTutorial
{
  public class moddingTutorial : Script
  {
      public moddingTutorial()
      {
          this.Tick += onTick;
          this.KeyUp += onKeyUp;
          this.KeyDown += onKeyDown;
      }

      private void onTick(object sender, EventArgs e)
      {
      }

      private void onKeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
      {
      }

      private void onKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
      {
        if (e.KeyCode == Keys.H)
        {
              Game.Player.ChangeModel(PedHash.Cat); 
        }
      } 
   }
}

Press F6 to compile your code into a .dll file. The file moddingTutorial.dll will be created in Documents > Visual Studio > Project > moddingTutorial > moddingTutorial > bin > Debug and automatically copied in your GTA V scripts folder.
Open GTA V, run the game in Story Mode (mods are only allowed in single player mode, not in GTA Online) and press H to see if the game turns your avatar into a cat.

Note: every time you make changes to your mod file, you need to build it again by pressing F6 in Visual Studio. In the game you must press F4 to open the console, and type Reload() in the console for the game to reload the new script and test again the changes.

onTick, onKeyUp and onKeyDown

The main events of Script Hook V Dot Net are onTick, onKeyUp and onKeyDown. Script Hook V Dot Net will invoke your functions whenever an event is called.

The code within the onTick brackets is executed at every frame, for as long as the game is running.

private void onTick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{ 
  //code here will be executed every frame
}

If your function is written inside onKeyDown (within the curly brackets following onKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e){}), your code will be executed every time a key is pressed.

private void onKeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
      //code here will be executed whenever a key is released
}

If your function is written inside onKeyUp, your code will be executed every time a key is released.

private void onKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
      //code here will be executed whenever a key is pressed
}

We can specify which code is executed based on what keys are pressed/released by using an if statement to check when a specific key on the keyboard is pressed or released.

private void onKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.H)
    {
        //code here will be executed whenever the key 'H' is pressed 
    }
}