SSE Nifskope Mash-up Optimization. Observations and a query.

[cumbrianlad]

Hello, folks!

 

A long while back, I made some Dwemer Facade Mash-ups to add hitch-posts without 'broken rings' and with solid dwarven metal railings to the Dwemer facade bridge parts. In my released mod, I wanted to use these, but I am using DLC02 Dwemer pieces, not the original Skyrim bits. I set about adjusting the meshes to use the DLC02 stone textures.

 

While doing this, I noticed that my earlier mash-ups had texture sets for each individual mesh that I had added. That's wasteful, so on one mesh, I pointed the lighting shader properties of each part that had a common texture set to the first appropriate texture set. I then ran all of the sanitization and optimization spells and deleted the redundant BSshaderTextureSets from the nif.

 

The result (for my test nif) is that the file size went down from 77.8 kb to 76.6 kB. In itself, this isn't a massive reduction, but I'm all in favour of cutting down any mesh or texture file wherever possible. It also makes the nif easier to alter for textures at a later date, because it cuts down the number of things that need to be altered. In this example, I can now alter 3 texture sets instead of 10 to get a whole new appearance.

 

I'm going to do it, anyway, but I thought I'd raise what I'd seen and ask for opinions. Both ways will work. One is a percent or two smaller. Is it worth it?

 

My opinion is that, yes it is worthwhile, and if it's done when creating the mash-up in the first place it will lead to smaller and easier to handle nif files. In no tutorial have I ever seen has this been pointed out.

[maxarturo]

If you have a mesh that its textures are divided by 10 UV sets and each UV set has a different texture assign to them, then this mesh will be bigger in size than the one that has 10 UV sets but it uses only one and the same texture in all of its sets.

The more textures / pieces a mesh has / use, the more heavier it becomes.

As for if should be done.

This is entirely on the creator's / modder's hand and what he/she is trying to accomplish.

Optimization is always desirable, but everything must be done in balanced, just because it works and it's good does not mean that it should always be done.

What i'm trying to say is that, you will be editing pieces that takes the biggest percentage of the player's FOV / render, so any changes to its quality will have an immediate impact on the general visual quality.

In some occasions like this one, more is better than less.

* Me in the other hand, i'm facing the exact opposite problem, the vanilla meshes i've edited have way too few UV sets, so i can't do what i have in mind and achieving the level of detail that i would like it's impossible.

Edited May 28, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Hi Maxarturo.

 

We may be talking about 2 different things here. I'm on about mash-ups: for example, I take the 'NobleShelf01' nif and then add several branches taken from the 'SilverBowl01' nif. I add these to the '0 BS Fade Node' of the shelf. I move the tri-shapes around in Nifskope until they look good. I then have a noble shelf full of silver bowls, all in one nif. I can then add this into CK and insert a shelf full of bowls in one click...

 

... In this case, I have pasted in lots of silver bowl branches. Each one has its own BSshaderTextureSet. So if I add 20 silver bowls, I get 20 new tri-shapes and each one has an associated shader property, which points to a unique texture set. All I'm saying is that, at the very least, we don't need 20 identical texture sets for the silver bowls... we only need 1. Come to think of it, I wonder if I can assign all the shader properties to one single node?

[maxarturo]

I'm a fast reader and "mash-up" in my line of work means: take the building's architecture + 3d design and reduce all its faces / geometry.

* This is a rough explanation.

So, yeap we were talking about 2 different things... sorry.

[cumbrianlad]

You're just ahead of me! No worries.

 

One of these days I'll get around to proper 3D modelling. It's the last thing for me to get around to.