BSA Blues

[jimsippo]

Hey gang sorry if this is old ground or something really obvious but I'm having trouble using unpacked BSA files to do anything in the construction set.

At the minute I'm using the BSA browser that comes with the Oblivion Mod Manager and I'm unpacking them into the Bethesda Softworks/Oblivion/data folder but when I came to use them in the construction set they aren't there. As an experiment I made a new folder called "InsertFilesHere" (catchy I know) and unpacked them there, the files were accessible in the construction set but I got an invalid directory error message when I tried to use them.

 

All I want to do is make a copy of the leather bracers model used for the Bands of quang lao but make them as a clothing item instead of armour. I've done similar things on Morrowind before with no problems but the Oblivion constructions set just does not seem to like me.

 

Thanks for reading, Jim

[The_Vyper]

I actually made a plugin for myself that does just that. PM me your email address and I'll send it to you, if you'd like.

[jimsippo]

I appreciate the generous offer Viper but I would really like to be able to do this for myself so I know how for any future mods I'd like to make.

Cheers, Jim.

[Hickory]

If you have the bsa files AND the unpacked files, the game cannot use both -- one will get overridden. Your best bet, or at least what I would do, is the copy the meshes and textures needed to a unique folder WITHIN the meshes and textures folder, then use NifSkope to adjust the texture paths, and create your mod from the new paths.

[jimsippo]

That's a bit beyond me unfortunately. I didn't realise it would be this complex just to make a simple mod that says "don't be a piece of armour, be an item of clothing". On Morrowind I recall it was a simple matter to replace your characters head with a skull and his hands with ribcages when wearing a certain amulet (it looked hilarious and spooky btw). I made a mod where you could throw plates at people once, plates.

 

If both unpacked and archived BSA files can't be used does that mean that I could extract all the bsa files and delete the archives? If I can it sounds like an attractive option right now.

[Genzel]

Forgive me if I missed it, but have you unpacked to a separate location, and then moved the files you want to use to their regular Oblivion/Data directory? I keep my meshes and texture files outside of Oblivion/Data until I need to edit them, when I move them there.

[jimsippo]

Cheers for all the help guys I am very grateful. I made a bit of progress last night and I can now get the meshes to work, I was putting them in the wrong place I think. I still get an invalid directory when trying to put in the inventory icon though. The one I'm trying to use is bracers.dds which has the file path textures\menus80\icons\armor\daedricbracers\bracers.dds. At the moment I'm just putting it into the data folder, is this right?

Cheers, Jim.

[Hickory]

Cheers for all the help guys I am very grateful. I made a bit of progress last night and I can now get the meshes to work, I was putting them in the wrong place I think. I still get an invalid directory when trying to put in the inventory icon though. The one I'm trying to use is bracers.dds which has the file path textures\menus80\icons\armor\daedricbracers\bracers.dds. At the moment I'm just putting it into the data folder, is this right?

Cheers, Jim.

 

No, you need to put the menu icon 'bracers.dds' into the folder that you indicated. If the folders don't exist, create them.

[jimsippo]

I did that but I still get the invalid directory message, is there somewhere special I should put the textures folder first?

I'm sorry it's taking me so long to get this and I feel a bit stupid but I am determined to not be defeated.

cheers, Jim

[Hickory]

The Texture folder goes in <installation path>\Oblivion\Data\ .