Change sortorder in CS

[4Millimeter]

I am learning to make mods in Oblivion so I can teach my Asperger kid to do it too. The troubble I have, or rather I know he will have, is to find the items he want to use when making the mods. I would like to sort the nif (meshes/textures) into subfolders so that all tilesets are in one folder and lights in one and kitchenware in one and swords in one and so on. Is there away to do that?

/wave

[Surilindur]

The path of the mesh itself inside the meshes folder already translates to the path in the object window tree, if I remember correctly. You can use something like BSAopt to inspect, for example, the Oblivion - Meshes.bsa and compare the mesh file paths to the locations of the corresponding game objects in the object window tree.

 

BSAopt (Beta 2.0.0, 16 December 2012 works fine): http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/247

 

Once you get the idea of how mesh paths correspond to the object window tree for the game objects - it is basically a 1:1 match with the 'meshes' folder as the tree root, if I remember correctly - it is only a matter of arranging the meshes in the correct directory paths to have them grouped the way you want. Do not touch the texture paths, though, because the meshes use the texture paths to 'find' the correct textures, so if you change the texture paths, you would need to edit each mesh that uses the moved textures to reflect that change. As far as I know, you can move the meshes around freely.

 

Hopefully that helps. :thumbsup: I know there are others around with more knowledge of meshes and textures around, too, so if there is something else to keep in mind, I would also love to hear it. However that should help you get started at least.

 

Edit: As in, you can move meshes around (if they are new meshes, for example from modders resources). Like if you have meshes:

...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\knife.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\stove.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\bucket.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\window.nif

And textures:

...\Data\textures\some\path\here\wood.dds
...\Data\textures\some\path\here\wood_n.dds
...\Data\textures\some\path\here\metal.dds
...\Data\textures\some\path\here\metal_n.dds

You can restructure the meshes so that the game objects that use them will be grouped differently in the CS object window tree:

...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\kitchenware\knife.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\kitchenware\bucket.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\tilesets\kitchen\stove.nif
...\Data\meshes\somedir\subdir\tilesets\kitchen\window.nif

But you should not touch the textures. Meshes are the 3D models, and textures are just textures. If that is what you were after, that is.

 

Edit 2: Also, you should not restructure meshes that are already in the game - that will break every object in the game that uses those meshes. You can freely restructure modders resources and other new meshes (unless the author has specifically requested not to restructure the mesh path, I have come across one resource that had that request in the readme).

Edited May 5, 2017 by Contrathetix

[4Millimeter]

Thank you =)

 

So

No touching official meshes from Oblivion and SI - Check

No touching textures - Check

Check if modders don't want you to move their stuff - Check

 

Follow up question will be where/how do i move the meshes?

In Windows explorer?

BSAopt? (Don't seem to be the right place since not all mods have bsa files)

In CS? (I have not found a way to move files there yet.)

[Surilindur]

No problem, happy to help. :)

 

And yes, moving meshes works in Windows Explorer. Modders resources usually come as loose files, as in, not packed in a BSA archive. You can use Windows Explorer to create, rename, delete and move folders and then cut+paste the meshes to the new folders. The meshes are just normal files. The only potential issue is that when creating a new object in the CS, one needs to select the file path for the mesh the object will be using. So when the path has been selected, and saved in the object (each object has its path saved separately), one would need to update the path for every object that uses a mesh if one were to move the mesh to another path.

 

If you have other questions, just ask, I am sure someone might be able to answer (I think my limited mesh/texture knowledge might prove insufficient at some point). :thumbsup:

[4Millimeter]

No more questions. Not for now at least. =D

Thank you very much for the help. Your mesh/texture knowledge is quite sufficient for my needs.

/wave