Work directly with vehicle and EUP models, watch texture edits update in real time, generate layered templates, build PSD variants, and capture polished previews without breaking your creative flow.
Official product page · Download Cortex Studio · Read the guide · Report a problem · View changelog · Support on Ko-fi
Spend less time exporting and loading. Spend more time designing.
Cortex Studio is a Windows-first livery development environment for GTA V and FiveM. It combines a React workflow UI, real-time Three.js previews, native Rust file integration, and a CodeWalker bridge for supported game assets.
The core loop stays deliberately simple:
Open a model → Load a texture → Edit in your preferred app → Save → See the preview update
Your models, textures, PSDs, PDNs, and project files remain authoritative. Cortex reads source assets and writes only to destinations you explicitly choose for captures, templates, or exports.
Livery work is iterative, but repeated in-game testing turns small visual decisions into a slow cycle. Cortex Studio keeps the model, texture, materials, lighting, and camera in one responsive workspace so you can inspect changes as soon as you save them.
- Immediate feedback — native file watching reloads edited textures without reopening the project.
- Format-aware previews — work with GTA V vehicle and clothing models instead of generic stand-ins.
- Focused workspaces — choose the viewer or generator that matches the job in front of you.
- Manual control — automatic material targeting can suggest a useful starting point, while your explicit texture choices remain the final override.
- Local workflow — source assets and saved workspaces stay on your machine; network actions such as updates or feedback are explicit.
| Workspace | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Vehicle | Liveries on the detected paint, or any texture on all or chosen meshes, with the vehicle's own textures, paint, mod kits and livery writing in one place. |
| EUP | Preview clothing and Emergency Uniform Pack assets from .ydd models. |
| Multi-Model | Line up to six vehicles in one scene, each with its own model, livery, glass design and paint. |
| Sirens | Build and edit a vehicle's carcols.meta siren setting, or its ELS VCF, while it runs on the full textured model, in the workbench or the showroom. |
| Prop Studio | Preview .ydr, .ydd and .yft props with their textures, emissives and authored lights, in a workbench or a showroom scaled to the prop, and export transparent PNGs. |
| Photo Mode | Stage game vehicles, freemode peds and game props (or your own models) on one set, open doors, set paint and poses from the game's animations, and save framed PNGs up to 4K. |
| Template Generator | Turn supported .yft and .ydd geometry into layered PSD or PNG templates. |
| PSD Variant Builder | Toggle PSD layers, manage visual variants, and batch-export finished PNGs. |
Load a supported model and texture, then keep Cortex Studio open beside Photoshop, paint.net, or another editor. Native file watching detects saves and refreshes the material in the viewer, preserving the rapid edit-preview loop.
Viewer controls include:
- orbit and free-flight camera movement;
- quick camera angles and automatic framing;
- adjustable background, gloss, and light intensity;
- an interactive light dome for azimuth and elevation;
- GTA vehicle paint: primary, secondary, pearlescent, wheel, interior trim and dashboard colours from the game's palette or custom RGB, applied through each shader's paint layer;
- model shadows, cage wireframes, a solid wireframe with live mesh stats (triangles, vertices, meshes, shaders, textures, size), and persistent camera state.
Build paint-ready templates directly from vehicle and EUP geometry. The dedicated workbench provides Model, Template, and Split views, format-aware UV targeting, hand-drawn markers that land exactly where you box them, a cage overlay, and layered export. Vehicle templates can add a solid panel overlay in any colour, with at least 5 px of bleed past every edge, saved as its own layer and as a transparent PNG. Templates carry the Cortex Studio logo on its own layer, placed in clear space away from the UVs.
Multi-drawable .ydd dictionaries can export one template per drawable so unrelated UV layouts do not overlap.
Open layered Photoshop documents without flattening the creative structure. Cortex Studio preserves layer groups and visibility while you create named variants such as patrol, supervisor, high-visibility, or stealth editions.
Variants can be previewed on the model and exported together as high-resolution PNG files.
Experimental Native Materials resolves available embedded, sibling, resource, and supported shared-game YTD textures for .yft assets. The system chooses the highest available LOD, deduplicates DDS work, and reports progress while loading.
This is a best-effort preview of GTA materials, not full shader parity. Manual texture selections always remain the final override on targeted meshes.
The Sirens workspace edits a YFT vehicle's carcols.meta siren setting while the pattern runs on the whole model, loaded with its own textures as in Vehicle: a 32-step grid per siren with paint-to-edit cells, every carcols siren field (flash and rotation channels, corona, colour, intensity, scale, light spill and head/tail light sequencers), presets, traffic advisor arrows and chases, a lens palette, eight-way facings, undo, and numbered markers on the model. Install to resource writes the setting into the resource's carcols.meta and links it in carvariations.meta, keeping a .bak of each file; Save to file… writes into any carcols.meta you choose and leaves the rest of that file untouched. Import… reads a setting from any carcols.meta. The Lights tab lists the vehicle's equipment (extras) with a switch each, and resource tools build a ULC ulc.lua config and rename the vehicle across its meta files, scripts and stream files.
Vehicles built for ELS (LSPDFR's ELS V8, ELS-FiveM, ELS-Plus or MISS-ELS) switch Sirens to their VCF: Cortex Studio finds it beside the model or in ELS folders you add, flashes the model's extras by light stage, edits every VCF section, and saves only what changed after a .bak. ELS V8 pattern timings are imported from your own ELS-FiveM copy; none are bundled.
Export clean presentation images from front, back, side, three-quarter, and top camera angles. Captures support zoom control and watermarks made from text, an imported logo, or both, with design presets, plain, shadow, outline, or plate finishes, and anchored or tiled placement.
Cortex Studio remembers recent projects, pinned workspaces, model and texture paths, colors, camera positions, and interface preferences. Adjustable UI scale, custom hotkeys, light and dark themes, and 12 appearance presets keep the desktop comfortable across different displays and workflows.
| Format | Use |
|---|---|
.yft |
GTA V and FiveM vehicle models |
.ydd |
GTA V clothing and EUP drawable dictionaries; props in Prop Studio |
.ydr |
GTA V and FiveM props and other single drawables (Prop Studio) |
.dff |
Legacy model support |
.clmesh |
Cortex Studio's internal binary mesh cache |
Note
.obj is intentionally not supported. Cortex Studio focuses on format-aware GTA V and FiveM workflows.
- Photoshop:
.psd - Paint.NET:
.pdn - Common images:
.png,.jpg,.jpeg,.gif,.bmp,.webp - Game and production formats:
.dds,.tga,.tif,.tiff,.avif - Illustrator input:
.ai
DDS support includes DXT1, DXT3, DXT5, BC4, BC5, BC7, and supported uncompressed layouts.
PRISM sharpens the entire edit-preview-export loop:
- Appearance presets — 12 complete workbench palettes with independent System, Light, and Dark choices.
- EUP templates — generate templates from
.yddassets with drawable-aware exports. - Rebuilt Template Generator — switch between Model, Template, and Split views with tighter marker and camera controls.
- Native materials — preview supported game textures while retaining manual overrides.
- Integrated feedback — submit structured bug reports or feature requests from the app.
- Clearer desktop workflows — refined onboarding, Settings, viewer controls, lighting, sidebars, updates, and What's New.
See the complete changelog for release history and implementation details.
Cortex Studio targets Windows and is distributed through GitHub Releases.
- Open the latest release.
- Download the Windows installer.
- Run the installer and launch Cortex Studio.
- Choose a workspace and open a supported model.
The desktop app includes the native integrations required for dialogs, file watching, filesystem access, preview exports, and updates.
- Bun
- Rust with the stable toolchain
- Tauri 2 prerequisites for Windows
- .NET 10 SDK for the CodeWalker bridge
The source is published here under the Cortex Studio Source-Available License. main is updated with each release.
The bridge builds against CodeWalker, which must sit in external/CodeWalker next to this repository. CI pins the commit it builds against in .github/workflows/ci.yml.
git clone https://github.com/IEver3st/cortex-labs.git
git clone https://github.com/dexyfex/CodeWalker.git external/CodeWalker
cd cortex-labs
bun install --frozen-lockfile
node tools/publish-bridge.mjspublish-bridge places the bridge in src-tauri/bin/codewalker-bridge, which the desktop build bundles. Run it again after changing the bridge.
bun run tauri devFor UI-only work in a browser:
bun run devBrowser mode does not provide native dialogs, file watching, sidecars, filesystem access, or updater behavior.
bun run build
bun run tauri buildbun run test
bun run build
cargo fmt --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --check
cargo check --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml
cargo clippy --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.tomlFocused test commands are also available for the CLMESH parser, native materials, PDN decoding, templates, camera behavior, updater state, and feedback payloads. See package.json for the current scripts.
cortex-labs/
├── src/
│ ├── components/ # React workspaces, viewers, and desktop UI
│ └── lib/ # Parsers, materials, capture, templates, and state
├── src-tauri/
│ ├── src/ # Rust commands and native integration boundary
│ ├── capabilities/ # Tauri permissions
│ └── icons/ # Application branding and platform icons
├── tools/
│ └── codewalker-bridge/ # .NET asset conversion sidecar
├── docs/
│ ├── site/ # Next.js and Fumadocs documentation project
│ └── yft-cli-contract.md # Sidecar and cache contract
├── CHANGELOG.md # Release history
└── package.json # Bun scripts and frontend dependencies
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Desktop runtime | Tauri 2 |
| Native integration | Rust |
| Interface | React 19 |
| Real-time preview | Three.js |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS 4 and CSS custom properties |
| Motion | Motion for React |
| Component primitives | Radix UI |
| Frontend build | Vite 7 |
| Package manager | Bun |
| Asset bridge | .NET 10 and CodeWalker.Core |
Cortex Studio is designed around local, user-directed work:
- source models, textures, PSDs, and PDNs are never silently overwritten, moved, renamed, or deleted;
- caches and exports are written to explicit derived destinations;
- local workspaces and preferences remain on the machine;
- malformed or unsupported inputs are rejected instead of being reinterpreted as plausible output;
- feedback submission is user-initiated and lets you choose whether recent diagnostic logs are included;
- private credentials do not belong in the renderer or any
VITE_*configuration value.
Contributions are welcome, especially when they improve format fidelity, viewer responsiveness, desktop reliability, or the clarity of the creative workflow.
A strong contribution should:
- preserve user-owned source assets and explicit manual choices;
- include a focused regression test for parser, material, or template changes;
- verify the native boundary when dialogs, files, watches, sidecars, or exports change;
- update user or contract documentation when shipped behavior changes;
- avoid broad cleanup unrelated to the change.
Open an issue before starting a large workflow or format change so the compatibility and integration surface can be discussed.
Accepted pull requests are carried into the next release's source snapshot. Submitting one licenses it to the project under section 3 of the license. CI builds every pull request without access to release secrets.
When opening a bug report, include:
- the Cortex Studio version and Windows version;
- the affected workspace and file format;
- clear reproduction steps;
- expected and actual behavior;
- a non-sensitive sample asset when redistribution is permitted;
- redacted diagnostics when they help explain the failure.
Do not publish credentials, paid assets, or proprietary source files in an issue.
Cortex Studio is source-available under the Cortex Studio Source-Available License 1.0. Copyright (c) 2026 Ever3st.
- You can use it for anything, including commercial livery work. What you make with it is yours. You can also read the code, build it, modify it for your own use or your team's, and send changes back as pull requests.
- You can't redistribute it or a modified version, sell or bundle it, or rebrand it as your own. Adding features (AI included), reskinning the interface, or renaming it doesn't make it a new product: it is still a modified version of Cortex Studio. To share Cortex Studio, link to this repository or its releases.
Contributions are licensed to the project under section 3 of the license. Versions up to 4.1.0 remain under the licenses they were published with.
Report security problems privately as described in SECURITY.md.
Cortex Studio is an independent community project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, or Cfx.re.
FiveM, Grand Theft Auto V, and related names and assets belong to their respective owners.
Built for the moment between saving the texture and seeing it come alive.