HD Pack overriding your retexturing mods?

[luthienanarion]

The ESP files exist so that the engine will load the files in the BSA archives. If you just dump a BSA in your data folder, the game won't do anything with it unless there is a plugin file loaded with the same name--unless you override the default functionality by including it in the INI files.

[HellmanJK]

Thank you. This issue has been bothering me for some time. I didn't know what was going on!

[silverpete42]

Hi all,

 

I don't think that distributing the HiRes DLC as an esp/bsa combi is a "wrong" way to do it. Basically we have Skyrim Main Program which gets patched, that's the base.

Everything else is considered a dlc or a mod which is an extension to the base game. So, in logical terms, they did it right (apart from the bloody mess they did to firewood and choppingblocks..).

That this strategy causes problems for the traditional way of modding is a bit of an oversight of bethesda i think.

 

But with a tool that got shipped alongside the CK you can (and i really hope all the texture modders at skyrimnexus will do) quite easily do the same bethesda did and thus get your modded textures to work with the High Res DLC WITHOUT messing with core files (It's just an ini, but still core). BTW Skyrim crashed for me with more than 4 bsas added to the resourcelist!

 

STEP1:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Collect all your precious textures in a clean folder
   
3. Be sure to have "data" as first folder in there (Example: MyMod/data/textures/etc/
   
4. Start "Archive.exe" in the Skyrim basedir
   
5. Check "Retain Directory Names", "Retain File Names" and "Embed File Names" (just in case)
   
6. Then "Edit"->"Add directory"->Navigate to your "data"-folder you just put your files in and choose it
   
7. Then "Edit"->"Check All Items"
   
8. Tick the appropriate checkboxes depending of the files you inserted (Textures, Meshes, etc.)
   
9. Then "File"->"Save as"->choose a name and save in Skyrims "Data"-folder
   
10. You now have an .bsa that Skyrim can use
    

 

STEP2:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Start the CK
   
3. Open Skyrim.esm
   
4. Do nothing at all and save an .esp with exactly the same name as your previously created .bsa
   
5. Now you have a linked .esp/.bsa combi which will override the HighRes DLC
   

 

 

It's bit of work but if all modders would do that and in addition put the version number in their files, like:

RiftenHQTextures1.84.esp and RiftenHQTextures1.84.bsa

Then you could easily switch between mod-versions and must not have fear of the automatic updates of steam workshop...

For myself i like to have full control of what happens with my game (especially a game with thousands of mods where one must filter good and bad mods) and this process makes me feel a bit more safe...

 

I tested all this with the mod above and also bundled a few small texture/meshes mods in a "ModCollection.bsa", created the appropriate "ModCollection.esp" and it worked without problems (so far...)

 

What do you guys think?

[nrm]

Can you please confirm my interpretation of the OP:

 

1. Just install Official HD textures as normal, enable them in launcher: optional files

2. Run a script to modify all file dates in the sub-folders skyrim\Data\*\... to be after the dates of the Official HD texture pack

 

EDIT: The downside here is that the script needs to be run everytime installing older mods than the esp date.

 

 

I think the IDEAL thing to do is to modify the Official HD Texture esp dates (is modification needed INSIDE the esp as well?) so that they are just after the dates of the vanilla game files but before the mod texture dates.

 

Confirm/Deny?

Edited February 11, 2012 by nrm

[Da3mon1991]

Hey I have a question. In the OP you say:

 

To be able to use the official texture pack together any specific mod texture pack do the following:

 

Locate Skyrim.ini under /Documents/My Games/Skyrim and Skirim_default.ini Skyrim main folder, change the existing Section "[Archive]" so it becomes like

 

[Archive]
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

 

And disable the Two ESPs related to the Official HD pack. This will keep the enhanced textures from it yet allowing to have mods textures working.

 

But how do I disable them? I changed the code as you said, but the ESP's don't show up when I check the Data files in the Launcher or anything.

[nosisab]

Hi all,

 

I don't think that distributing the HiRes DLC as an esp/bsa combi is a "wrong" way to do it. Basically we have Skyrim Main Program which gets patched, that's the base.

Everything else is considered a dlc or a mod which is an extension to the base game. So, in logical terms, they did it right (apart from the bloody mess they did to firewood and choppingblocks..).

That this strategy causes problems for the traditional way of modding is a bit of an oversight of bethesda i think.

 

But with a tool that got shipped alongside the CK you can (and i really hope all the texture modders at skyrimnexus will do) quite easily do the same bethesda did and thus get your modded textures to work with the High Res DLC WITHOUT messing with core files (It's just an ini, but still core). BTW Skyrim crashed for me with more than 4 bsas added to the resourcelist!

 

STEP1:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Collect all your precious textures in a clean folder
   
3. Be sure to have "data" as first folder in there (Example: MyMod/data/textures/etc/
   
4. Start "Archive.exe" in the Skyrim basedir
   
5. Check "Retain Directory Names", "Retain File Names" and "Embed File Names" (just in case)
   
6. Then "Edit"->"Add directory"->Navigate to your "data"-folder you just put your files in and choose it
   
7. Then "Edit"->"Check All Items"
   
8. Tick the appropriate checkboxes depending of the files you inserted (Textures, Meshes, etc.)
   
9. Then "File"->"Save as"->choose a name and save in Skyrims "Data"-folder
   
10. You now have an .bsa that Skyrim can use
    

 

STEP2:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Start the CK
   
3. Open Skyrim.esm
   
4. Do nothing at all and save an .esp with exactly the same name as your previously created .bsa
   
5. Now you have a linked .esp/.bsa combi which will override the HighRes DLC
   

 

 

It's bit of work but if all modders would do that and in addition put the version number in their files, like:

RiftenHQTextures1.84.esp and RiftenHQTextures1.84.bsa

Then you could easily switch between mod-versions and must not have fear of the automatic updates of steam workshop...

For myself i like to have full control of what happens with my game (especially a game with thousands of mods where one must filter good and bad mods) and this process makes me feel a bit more safe...

 

I tested all this with the mod above and also bundled a few small texture/meshes mods in a "ModCollection.bsa", created the appropriate "ModCollection.esp" and it worked without problems (so far...)

 

What do you guys think?

 

For big texture mods I do agree they could be packed inside BSA but...

 

For most all other cases It's not a good idea as the practice has shown already. But let's try to explain some rationals for that claim.

 

First, BSAs are normally used for assets expected to not suffer updates anymore, they should not be used except for resource packs like mods and should be avoided otherwise. This is because if used as common mod they would indeed need ESPs and then in very short time this could lead to a chaos and a heck to deal with load order.

Big Mods, which don't touch vanilla assets but use their own items, textures, meshes, etc, are those which can enjoy the most being BSAed. Example: Oblivions Apachii Goddesses mod which some here may know already ... a big mod which introduces many armors, weapons, cloths and stuff but don't touch vanilla, all are totally new and independent.

 

Second, Compilations or ModCollection as you called them are by themselves hard to keep relatively to individual updates in their mods... every time it was attempted it failed for attempting to install the updated version of specif mod contained in the collection almost always leads to serious conflicts with "itself", I mean the same mod with different versions conflicting with itself... ugly. Someday, for some mods deemed to have achieved status of finished and not subject of author updates, the idea of collection may be good but not now. The problem is aggravated exponentially if the collection is packed inside a BSA, for at least that selective update could be done in many, maybe most cases by overwriting the old files at the /data (lets hope the ESPs were not "unified" into one only).

 

I could extend the post pointing more reasons against the indiscriminate use of BSAs but the above should be enough to display some serious problems with that approach.

 

The bottom line to what is on topic with the thread is, ESP driven BSAs are in general bad idea when the ESP is actually needed but not understandable using them for BSAs which just update/enhance textures and which could be loaded by their own load mechanism.

 

Edit: Still I'm open to have the above contested for I can't claim to have understood completely the changes introduced by Skyrim in the method to load assets, let's see.

Edited February 11, 2012 by nosisab

[jamesxff]

I was having issues, getting the new textures to load, then I realised that the beautiful skyrim mod was having an effect as it replaced a bunch of the items I was comparing to see the new textures, the skyrim textures are much better in comparison, once the mod was disabled it worked fine using the ini fix.