Making .esp out of loose data files

[Zaflis]

I'm not sure if this is the best way, but i didn't find any information about this topic anywhere, and because i just got my own texture-mod working, thought to post how.

 

So.. you have an old mod that's in million little pieces as .dds, .nif files or something else. Now that Creation Kit is released, it also installed new tool called Archive. To pack the files, you first use Archive tool to pack them into .bsa and .bsl files, and then Creation Kit to load the loose files as Archive into new .esp. So you will end up with 3 files for the mod (i assume .bsl is just a description info about .bsa file. If you don't have it, your .bsa may be unreadable (?)). Basically simply having the .bsa and .bsl files did not load it in. The plugin file .esp takes care of that the new files can be found.

 

So i'll go it through in steps:

- Start \Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\Archive.exe (optionally make shortcut on desktop).

- Check wanted checkboxes: "Compress archive", "Retain directory names", "Retain file names". Also Textures, Meshes or whatever you are going to add.

- Now open windows explorer on the background and go to Skyrim\Data\ folder where your loose files are. Simply drag and drop all the files you want to add to the archive, in the large white box in TESArchive.

- Edit -> Check all items.

- Save as... choose filename and save it into Skyrim\Data\ (it will save 2 files in .bsa and .bsl formats). Feel free to close TESArchive.

-----------

- Start Creation Kit.

- File -> Data... : Check Skyrim.esm (doubleclick), and uncheck everything else. Make sure that none of the files is "Active File". Click OK.

- Skyrim.esm will throw errors. Click "Cancel" (at least for my english version), or "Yes to all", if such is shown.

- File -> Create Archive. Now the same thing you did with TESArchive, drag and drop all files you want to add, from Windows explorer into the list.

- Click Pack files. Then File -> Save. You're done!

 

Now from Skyrim launcher or Nexus mod manager, check the newly made .esp file. Move all loose files you previously had into some temporary backup/work folder. Skyrim shouldn't need them anymore.

[Thepal]

I'm not sure why you had to do the first bunch of steps. All you should have to do is the second part (CK->Create Archive->Create a blank esp->Add all your loose files to the Archive->Upload).

 

That's what I did and it worked fine. The Create Archive part will create the BSA and BSL files itself (no need to run the Archive program seperately).

[Zaflis]

I'm not sure why you had to do the first bunch of steps. All you should have to do is the second part (CK->Create Archive->Create a blank esp->Add all your loose files to the Archive->Upload).

 

That's what I did and it worked fine. The Create Archive part will create the BSA and BSL files itself (no need to run the Archive program seperately).

.esp file always comes out 1kb in size after i've loaded archive files in. So it's not really even loading them... I had over 20Mb worth of textures.

 

But i haven't tried that Upload you say, just saving. And just saving in Creation Kit doesn't make .bsl or .bsa.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Zaflis

[Furrywolf]

This doesn't work at all for me! it says that none of the files are a valid file type and cannot be added to the archive. :( I have these files:

 

xxxxxxx.bsl

xxxxxxx.bsa

xxxxxxx.Bethesda plugin data file

 

They load up in th game but the textures and armor versions are ALL WRONG. So I dunno how to install the bsl file as I never seen that before. Thought this might help but it doesn't work!

[Hannibalektr]

bsa not showing up after you make one? Yeah, it shows the path as skyrim/data, but it atually kicks it out into skyrim. Go figure, the ck lies.

[Ledgendary117]

I've done both myself before as well, and personally I like the first method best using TESArchive. The Creation Kit can be buggy as a duck and doesn't always show what files you put into it even though it should or sometimes doesn't let you (it really sucks when you have a lot of loose files from mods over a long period of time and is rather time consuming at best). As with TESArchive, its much more stable and gives detail to what you're putting into your archive. An alternative to drag and drop, you could just click the Edit menu and select Add directory, or Add file and it will load up a specific file or a complete directory with every file in it (saves the headache of looking up each one). In saving, sometimes you have to exercise patience because after you start saving it wil say "writing file data to temporary file" on the bottom (I'm guessing this is part of the bsl file process), it may seem like it's stuck, but really its working out all the compression and file retaining structures you've associated with it, depending on how big or how many files you've included determines it's file size (some of my loose files are 5Gb just in texture files). Whatever you do, leave it alone and don't close it or even click anything on it. Usually its done when you see "Renaming temporary archive", just open up windows explorer to see if it's in your skyrim data folder (hopefully you choose to save there), then its safe to close the program.

 

Now for getting the game to use your newly created archive is another additional step that I found you should do and no you don't necessarily need an .esp file to get it to work. Edit your skyrim.ini file located in "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim" using notepad or preferrably notepad++. Scroll down to where you see [Archive] and under the line "sResourceArchiveList2" add your bsa file name followed by its extension and yes its case sensitive, so word for word, letter for letter. I suppose you could use the first sResourceArchiveList, however, I feel its probably best to leave that for the base game, not mod extensions. This secondary list is very useful for bsa files from the DLC as well and would recommend adding them there too. Save your changes, then bring up the file properties on the skyrim.ini file and on the General tab, find "attributes" on the bottom and check the box indicating "read only" then click OK. The purpose for this is so that we're preventing the launcher from making reverting changes automatically should you wish to alter you mod list or graphics options. Launch your game to see if everything checks out ok. If everything seems to play out ok, I suppose you could take the file folders that have the loose files and temporarily move them to your desktop or external drive, then launch the game again to see if everything is still performing the way it should. If all goes well without the loose files, don't delete them just yet. I would suggest compressing them in a zip or 7z or something as a backup just in case something goes wrong so that you can restore your game without losing your library of loose file mods. There's nothing worse than not being able to find an old mod you liked that had been a part of your game and now is lost to the digital oblivion gates in the sky.

 

Hopefully this helps.

[GothicKitty]

Now my problem is I save what I created in the ESP file for my mod and then exit the creation kit for a bit. But when I go back and do some more work it tells me I can not save over an existing file or soemthing to that effect. How can you work on a mod day to day without starting over? I am new to making mods and to the creation Kit itself.

[cdcooley]

The CK can't save a file if other programs (or another copy of the CK) have it open.

[scharleaux]

Look, I do not want to bump a dead thread for nothing. But this is very precise and useful. Also, as my knowledge of Fallout 3 modding and retex goes, you don't want a lot of .esp files being loaded by your game, it will just slow it down.

 

What you can do, as an example, is repack all the texture replacers you would like to use into a single BSA file and create a ESP for it. It instead of loading multiple ESP files from several texture replacer mods, load only one that would include all the mods in a single BSA controlled by the ESP file.

 

This can be helpful.

Edited July 3, 2017 by scharleaux