Optimizing Mash-Ups?

[DWooT]

So my main question is this: What can I do to optimize my mash-ups?

 

I've been doing a lot of tinkering in Outfit Studio to make mash-up outfits for NPCs for a few mods I've published, mods for personal use, and drafts for upcoming mod ideas. But I was not paying keen attention to the size of the textures I was using or the number of different textures that went into each mash-up.

 

Here's a very quick, rough, and very, very early draft of a mash-up I am working. It is "bare" and doesn't have all the extras I intend to add to it.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-j8D-o5MnZpN1VpUmpmSDF5enc

 

I have intentionally left the colors mismatched until its closer to what I want so I can see the original shapes easier. Most of the textures to the shapes (meshes) in this mash-up are 4K. So the size adds up pretty quick. One of the contributing mod authors suggested I should consider merging the meshes and re-doing the textures and UV maps. That all sounds well outside my recently learning to dabble in Outfit Studio and just barely tweaking _d.dds in GIMP.

 

So any help or suggestions or where to get started would be appreciated.

 

Am I going to have to go all-in and merge meshes, textures, and UV maps or are there some other steps I can take to optimize the mash-ups?

 

If I have to go all-in, where in the world do I start?

 

Thanks in advance for anyone patient and generous enough to throw some advice my way.

[FiftyTifty]

The term for merging individual textures into one texture is known as texture atlasing. Texture atlases are good for performance; if you have a mesh that has multiple textures, each texture adds a couple draw calls. But if you merge them into one big texture, now we're back to only a couple draw calls for the whole shebang, as we only have one (albeit big) texture.

 

Luckily, since outfits don't use texture tiling, the freely available texture atlas scripts for 3DS Max will save you a hell of a lot of bother. Get the meshes into 3DS Max, make sure the textures 'n' s#*! are all set up, run the script and save yer new texture.

 

You could merge the meshes for even fewer draw calls, but keep in mind that Bethesda themselves use multiple meshes in a single outfit. Not all of them, mind, but most.

[DWooT]

Thanks for the advice.

 

I read a lot of forums and watched quite a few videos. It looks like I'm definitely not up for merging meshes and completely re-doing textures and UV maps. The most I may try is what you described above. It won't really reduce the total memory size concerns though.

[FiftyTifty]

Memory size isn't anywhere near as important as draw calls; Fallout 4's 64 bit, after all. You don't need to redo the textures and uv maps; texture atlasing scripts do all that for you. Just got to make sure everything's all set up and nice. Namely, having the diffuse maps, normal maps and parallax maps 'n' all that loaded.

 

You've also got a hell of a lotta mesh objects there. I'd suggest merging the arm objects into one mesh, the torso objects into one mesh, the leg objects into one mesh, etc.

[DWooT]

Thanks again.

 

The picture I posted was a working draft to see it all combined and to tinker. I'll be breaking it back out when/if I move forward with the idea.

 

I don't currently have 3DS Max so I have to figure out my options in that regard.