Nifskope and batch-swapping textures

[TheGoldfinch]

Hiya, so I'm modding Oblivion again, and had completely forgot an issue with Nifskope. When trying to swap out one texture, the program will automatically swap out every other texture that shares path.

So, if I'm trying to edit an iron cuirass and want a different texture on the arms than the chest, the 'skope won't let me, as they both use the same texture path initially.

 

While this feature is really practical sometimes, in this case it's really hampering. Any ideas on how to disable it temporarily?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, actually it does not switch out all textures with the same "path". It's more that in a properly optimized NIF many branches "share" identical nodes. You may see a "NiMaterial" property inside 3 different branches, but if they're identical, they usually also have the same number/id, meaning they "are" only 1 and this single one is used in multiple branches. Of course, if you edit one of those, then "all" occurrences will change, as you edited the only one there is and its "references" elsewhere will just reflect that change.

 

In an unoptimized NIF this situation can be created by using "Spells > Optimize > Combine properties" (or a similar wording), and just as easily it can become undone again for single occurrence editing through "Spells > Optimize > Split properties". Then you'll see every single occurrence of a NiNode, no matter which one or what its properties are, will have an own id and will thus be isolated from all the others. If you edit "then", you will edit only the 1 occurrence and none else.

 

But don't forget to run "Combine properties" again after you're done. A NIF file's way less taxing on the engine when it's properly optimized than when there's 100 identical copies of the same node each with its own id.

[TheGoldfinch]

Just tried it, and it worked just like you said, thank you so much for the help!