Sector 257
Sector 257
Sector 257
Sector 257
Sector 257
Sector 257
Sector 257
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Map mod for GTA V
Project Overview
This project wasn't for any client—just a fun personal project. It’s a map mod for the game Grand Theft Auto V. The map mod is military-themed, inspired by ideas from shadow governmental bases like Area 51 and Sector 4.
What Inspired Me:
All of these conspiracy theories about Area 51, Sector 4, etc., inspired me to create a military island. I wanted to understand how the shadow government would build a base. Ever heard of Bob Lazar and his statements about underground hangars in Area 51 and S4? Well, this base is built on that idea. Some of you will notice a few blueprints that Lazar himself showed. This map isn’t based on any real base—or is it?
Now, here’s a bit more about the map: It consists of different sectors, including:
- A main runway.
- A small aircraft runway.
- A helipad.
- A taxi bay.
- A top-secret taxi bay that leads underground.
- Underground hangars connected to the taxi way.
- Coastal defense systems at the northeast, west, and south portions of the map.
- An underground ammo storage facility.
- A harbor with a battleship, destroyer, and cargo ship.
- Cargo bay, submarine bay, oil depot, and fire stations.
- Underground, there’s a jet factory, HQ, wind tunnel, tank factory, nuclear storage facility, and a top-secret hangar that stores alien aircraft.
This map has received a total of 14,000 downloads, and several well-known YouTubers have played on it. Three of them have more than 2 million subscribers, and one has almost 8 million. I was honestly dumbstruck by how many impressions and views it got. It felt weird that so many people played on my map—something I visualized and made a reality. It was truly awesome to see them enjoying it as much as I did making it. A really awesome moment for me. I stopped updating the map after a while because GTA V updated regularly. I finally decided to pull the plug (for now). I want to update the map again in the future when I have some spare time. The knowledge I gained from building this map was huge. It became the foundation for my 3D journey and my passion for creating 3D scenes. It taught me how to optimize models, how LODs work, how to model, unwrap, and how collisions work. I learned how to work with game data and how to import and export models to be game-ready—all for one of the most famous games out there, Grand Theft Auto V. At the time, my dream was to work remotely for Rockstar Games. Who knows, maybe that dream will become a reality sometime in the future.
The Design Process:
The design process was truly complex. I could write ten pages about everything, but I’ll just give a summary. First things first, I needed to learn the basics of modeling, texturing, and how collisions work, especially for this game. The first part of the map I modeled was the bay area. I played a lot with scaling to ensure everything was to scale, and I used a lot of modding tools like ScriptHook V, Open IV, Menyoo, etc. Open IV allowed me to import, export, and convert the models I needed. ScriptHook V was the mod that helped me convert everything through 3ds Max to be able to import it into Open IV.
The second part of the map I modeled was the mountains and the island itself. I learned a lot about 3ds Max modifiers while building this, like the Boolean and Noise modifiers. The third part was the runway. I went all in on this. I researched what all the markings on the runway meant—the numbers, lights, everything—and I made sure it looked as realistic as possible.
After that, I built the underground hangars and depot, the helipad, and then I started on the main underground base. This part of the map includes a jet factory with a wind tunnel, an HQ base, a long tunnel leading further underground to a tank factory, a nuclear tunnel, and finally, the most fun part of the project: the underground alien hangars filled with UFOs inspired by Bob Lazar’s famous Sector 4 story. I even modeled the exact "sport model" UFO he notoriously worked on.
The second part of the map I modeled was the mountains and the island itself. I learned a lot about 3ds Max modifiers while building this, like the Boolean and Noise modifiers. The third part was the runway. I went all in on this. I researched what all the markings on the runway meant—the numbers, lights, everything—and I made sure it looked as realistic as possible.
After that, I built the underground hangars and depot, the helipad, and then I started on the main underground base. This part of the map includes a jet factory with a wind tunnel, an HQ base, a long tunnel leading further underground to a tank factory, a nuclear tunnel, and finally, the most fun part of the project: the underground alien hangars filled with UFOs inspired by Bob Lazar’s famous Sector 4 story. I even modeled the exact "sport model" UFO he notoriously worked on.
In all, this was a huge personal project for me and the foundation of my 3D journey. It was incredibly cool to experience and play on a map I built. That was really satisfying. You can search "Sector 257" on YouTube to see how many videos there are. This wasn’t a professional project, just something I did for fun!