Delete REFR from .esp

[PoodleSandwich2]

EDITED SOLVED (for future readers):

How to delete a REFR type reference from an esp?

- Download the Enchanted Editor (Link: http://mw.modhistory.com/download--1662) Can't promise that's the latest version but I'm sure it does the job, otherwise have a look around :).

- Install and run the editor, open the esp

- On the left hand side, look for where it says "Cells" and click to expand

 

- Within "Cells" you'll find a list cells and within each cell, a list of things that have been changed or added.

 

- Each REFR type reference is under NAME_NEXT

 

- If you click the name of the cell, then on the right will appear a drop down list of everything that's been added or moved

 

- Search through that list deleting the NAME_NEXT references for the objects you want to remove the reference to

- Alternatively you can click through where it says NAME_NEXT on the left, checking what each one is and marking it for deletion, when you've marked everything, click "delete marked" on the right, which ever you find quicker.

 

It could be a lengthy process but some might find having a GUI more user friendly than using Tes3cmd. I think TESAME might be able to do something similar but I can't speak from experience. Good luck!


ORIGINAL QUESTION:

Hi All,

 

How do you delete REFR references from an esp file?

 

Trying to make a compatibility patch for Morrowind Rebirth and Graphic Herbalism - No Glow by dejunai (edited to have correct color lights).

 

Trouble is, this requires replacing all the newly added glowing flora CONTAINERS in Rebirth with No Glow LIGHTS.

 

 

Seeing as Rebirth is an .esp I would need to either:

- Find a way to delete every REFR of glowing flora added by Rebirth. (Can't be done under "Details..." and can't see how to do it with Enchanted Editor or MWEdit either??)

- Find a way to allow 1 .esp to treat another .esp as though it were an .esm (Delete references from it when loaded underneath) if this were possible, think of the opportunities!

 

 

According to Johanrosen (who uploaded Rebirth to the Nexus), converting and uploading Morrowind Rebirth as an .esm would create a lot of compatibility problems with other mods.

 

 

I have spent nearly a day Googling and swearing, please, help?

Edited September 8, 2018 by PoodleSandwich2

[leonardo2]

I think you can delete the REFR record in TESPCD (not sure about that) since it supports all known records.

[abot]

why can't you simply use TESCS edit\search&replace? (I mean, in the Rebirth .esp directly)

Edited June 15, 2018 by abot

[PoodleSandwich2]

Thanks leonardo2, downloaded and tried TESPCD but unfortunately seems to be the same as Enchanted Editor in that is shows everything but REFR records. (unless I'm missing something?)

abot, thanks for the much needed sanity check... I am face palming so hard right now! :facepalm: I have not done it yet but I can't see why this wouldn't fix my problem with creating this particular patch. Seems so obvious now but this is why it's so helpful to have an outside perspective, I feel pretty stupid, thank you again! :)

I am kinda glad I didn't figure this out before though or I might not have started this thread and I still think it would be very useful to know if there's a way to:

- Find a way to delete every REFR of glowing flora added by Rebirth. (Can't be done under "Details..." and can't see how to do it with Enchanted Editor or MWEdit either??)

- Find a way to allow 1 .esp to treat another .esp as though it were an .esm (Delete references from it when loaded underneath) if this were possible, think of the opportunities!

As I feel like knowing how to do these things would be invaluable for modders...

 

[abot]

> Find a way to delete every REFR of glowing flora added by Rebirth. (Can't be done under "Details..." and can't see how to do it with Enchanted Editor or MWEdit either??)

the simpler way is probably from tes3cmd , usually it's convenient to first find/dump what you want to change, then use the delete command

 

e.g.

tes3cmd.exe dump --instance-match "refid1|refid2|refIdN" rebirth.esp > out.txt

 

when you are sure matched instances are ok you can use the delete command instead of dump

(also if you can filter by type it should be faster e.g. --type LIGH)

tes3cmd.exe delete --instance-match "refid1|refid2|refIdN" rebirth.esp > out.txt

 

> Find a way to allow 1 .esp to treat another .esp as though it were an .esm (Delete references from it when loaded underneath) if this were possible, think of the opportunities!

this is a pillar of TES3 inner workings, I don't think there is a way 100% compatible.

you can try Mash copy to .esm e.g. from rebirth.esp to rebirth.esm, but probably you will not be able to move/delete some references from another .esp having rebirth.esm as master, depending if reference has been placed new or moved/changed by rebirth

(this is more or less how Solstheim Overhaul .esm works)

Edited June 15, 2018 by abot

[PoodleSandwich2]

Thanks again abot, that sounds very useful, I read a lot of people say "use tes3cmd" when I was Googling all this but no one explain how so much appreciated, didn't know you could do so much with it. I will have a go and post on here with my results.

[PoodleSandwich2]

Ok, so gave up on the Compatibility patch for Rebirth because I found out that standard Graphic Herbalism isn't even compatible with it. But I have been able to create a patch for Immersive Seyda Neen by DremoraLord98 using the method you described abot, thanks for that!

Only thing I still can't figure out is how to delete just one REFR as opposed to all REFR references to an object type. e.g all of flora_bc_mushroom_01. That's what I did for ISN, then added back the ones that were supposed to be there (the mod had REFRences to vanilla mushrooms that were unchanged).

That works fine for a smaller mod like ISN but would be a huge PITA for something bigger.

Any way to delete a specific item instance?

 

thanks.

Edited August 6, 2018 by PoodleSandwich2