- Texture.ba2 question

[VilanceD]

Do textures have to go into a - texture.ba2? Could they go into a - main.ba2? What happens if DDS files go into a - main.ba2?

[StormWolf01]

Now that's a very interesting question.

Extremely interested in seeing what the answer is!

[Blinxys]

Saw you posted this somewhere before, concluded for myself that:

 

"- Textures.ba2" is just to hardcode/resolve the path to textures folder and make them up/down-gradable easily. (Modular).

"- Main.ba2" handles pointing to the whole shebang otherwise. (*.wad).

 

Theory: dds file in - main.ba2 will not be found without some hack since they do not appear outside of textures folder anywhere, and textures folder has it's own ba2.

Corollary: there is nothing in the textures.ba2 that is not a texture since it is a hardcoded path/container for the textures folder, only.

 

Please, correct me if I've overlooked something. :unsure:

[HeyYou]

I always thought that the separation of different file types into separate archives was more for organization, than anything else. After all, the game will load any properly named archive, and integrate its folder structure into the game.... so I would think, that so long as the file paths were correct, (within the archive itself.) it really wouldn't matter what the archive name was, just so long as it gets loaded. I see a fair few mods with only one archive, that includes meshes, textures, and various other things....

Edited October 31, 2022 by HeyYou

[LarannKiar]

"- Textures.ba2" uses different archive format than "- Main.ba2" so textures shouldn't be mixed with other files. In the official archiver tool (Archive2) >> Settings >> Format >> DDS (for textures) / General (for anything other than textures). Most likely it's because the engine handles the two type of archives differently.

[HeyYou]

"- Textures.ba2" uses different archive format than "- Main.ba2" so textures shouldn't be mixed with other files. In the official archiver tool (Archive2) >> Settings >> Format >> DDS (for textures) / General (for anything other than textures). Most likely it's because the engine handles the two type of archives differently.

Ah, I did not know that. :) Thanks.

[Sephrajin]

If you plan to "add textures", I would recomed to do so with your own SomeName.ba2 archive, or as loose files.

Just saying because if you should ever have to (for whatever reason) "verify game files" via steam, those custom textures would be gone. (as the original file was changed)

 

Rule of thumb, if its just 1 or 2 textures, it might be suitable (less hazzle) to add them as loose files, whereas with with many textures it would be a performance saver if you would pack them as ba2.

This applies to both, new textures and texture replacer situations.

[StormWolf01]

Thanks very much everybody! Good things to know! :yes: :yes:

I do agree tho, that I think it'd be better to just create a seperate .ba2 archive and then set it up as an overwrite, than to go tampering around with bethesda's mess.

 

I wasn't sure if it was a case where they did it like that, just to make it easier on the dev's. Or if it was a case like LarannKiar was saying.

I remember, when modding Midnight Club 2, if you accidentally put the wrong files into the wrong archive, the game wouldn't read the new ones.