How do I get Oblivion to recognize changes to existing bsa files?

[sulihin666]

So I downloaded replacement powerattack and hit sound files for female high elves from Nexus. However, I struggled with making Oblivion recognize the voice files as loose files per the developer's instructions. Then I got this bright idea after figuring out how to unpack and repack a bsa file: why not simply replace the existing sound files in the bsa with the new ones, then repack? So, I followed this procedure:

 

1. copy the old voice 1 bsa file from the data folder into a folder labeled "old voice bsa" (as a backup).

2. extracted the voice bsa file onto my desktop.

3. opened the resulting folder, made sure voice file names were exact between the old and replacement files

4. copied the replacement voice files overwriting the old ones

5. repacked the bsa file using the exact same name as before

6. place the repacked voice 1 bsa file back into the oblivion data folder, overwriting the old one.

 

Logic suggests this should work perfect. But...nope. Now on my character as well as any new high elf based character, all the powerattacks and hits are silent. Also tried creating a breton (since the breton voice files were in the same bsa file). In this case, the breton worked just fine. So for some reason Oblivion refuses to recognize only the updated voice files in the bsa despite having the exact same filename as the old ones. I even re-extracted to updated voice files from the bsa and they played just fine. What am I doing wrong? Is there some other file somewhere that is telling oblivion that these are not the original files and should not be used? I'm not creating a new mod or a new bsa file. Just attempting to trick the game into thinking the replacement files are the old ones. But, the game is somehow outsmarting me....

[sulihin666]

That said, if I can't get this to work, I am half tempted to just leave the sounds silent and role with it since I'll take silence over grandma taking swings at daedra lol!! I could never figure out why in both Oblivion and Skyrim the developers at Bethesda were clueless about character aesthetics. They seemed to have this thing for elderly and in some cases downright ugly PCs... If only they put as much effort into PC aesthetics as they did environmental aesthetics. Well, Zenimax got it right with ESO anyhow.

[HadToRegister]

Did you change the ESP that references the BSA file so the game knows about the changes you made inside the BSA?

 

BSA files are like the "Library" for all of the sound, texture, mesh etc files

The ESP is the Librarian that shows the game where to find the files INSIDE the BSA

[sulihin666]

See, that's the real trick. I am seeing ESP files for installed mods and dlc, but not for any of the basic BSA files like music, textures, voices, etc.

[HadToRegister]

See, that's the real trick. I am seeing ESP files for installed mods and dlc, but not for any of the basic BSA files like music, textures, voices, etc.

 

Are you saying you're editing the actual BSA files that come with the game?

[sulihin666]

That's correct. Just one of them. Although I did make a backup copy. But what doesn't make sense is that even renaming the new voice files exactly as the original files, the game still doesn't recognize them. So there must be another file, perhaps a ESP, which tracks things like a timestamp or file size or some other kind of signature which tells the game whether the files have been tampered with. I can't see any other reason.

[Oblivionaddicted]

The folder way for the voice files depends of the language version you use, the modder maybe created the mod on another language version than yours.

 

You can perhaps fix your issue by creating silent lip files using TES4Gecko and replace them with some tweaks in the folder way.

 

What's the mod you use by the way?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Hmm, editing the game's original BSA files is something that's strongly advised against ever doing, and it's usually also never needed. With BSA Redirection for Archive Invalidation loose file replacements begone working like a charm in 100% of cases.

 

You won't find any ESP for the Vanilla BSAs, as these are listed inside the Oblivion.ini to load from the start.

Mods usually don't mess with the INI and instead use the auto-loading mechanism triggered by similarly named ESPs. That is for example the official Shivering Isles expansion uses this trick to have its additional BSAs loaded by the game. Its "DLCShiveringIsles.esp" is completely empty, but loading it will automatically trigger loading of every BSA starting with the exact same name, i.e. "DLCShiveringIsles - Meshes.bsa", "DLCShiveringIsles - Textures.bsa", "DLCShiveringIsles - Voices.bsa", what have you. The official DLCs all do it that way. That's the way mods load their BSAs.

Only the game itself needs the "Oblivion.ini" setup to have its BSAs loaded, as it doesn't come with an "Oblivion.esp".

 

But that's all just basic technical information and has got nothing to do with your problem at hand. If your voice files were of the proper name and in the proper path, the game would've used them over the ones inside the BSA already instantly. Always provided you're either on a game distribution which doesn't need Archive Invalidation and BSA date fixing for all other types of files like Steam, or maybe also GoG, does, OR you're already having proper Archive Invalidation means in place and working anyways.

 

You practically replacing the original files inside the game's BSA should also have had the effect you wished for already, no matter how unadvised a solution it is. That it still didn't is a sign of different problems here.

Your replacement "did" work, as the actors suddenly turned mute instead. Them not using the replacement voices, or better yet the replacement voices not working apparently, is a sign of problems with the files themselves.

 

Could you link us to the source materials you got those voice files from, so we could check if there's anything up with them? Oblivion's rather picky when it comes to file types with different possible specifications. Not all kinds of MP3 will immediately work for music, for instance, and not all kinds of WAV will work for sound.

 

Additionally not all ways of packing up/compressing a BSA archive will still be readable by the game either. So this part of the job could also have been messed up some. But that's a topic I know lesser about I'm afraid.

[sulihin666]

The voice files I used came from the "Elf Female Younger Voice Replacer" https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/23181/

 

Thanks for the explanation of what happens under the hood when Oblivion loads, DrakeTheDragon. This is something that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around. It does seem as though there are many variable to take into account, although I suspect the error may have been in the repackaging of the bsa as at least one NPC was also affected (the fisherman just before the bridge into Imperial City). No voice and it burned through the dialogue before I had a chance to read it lol!! So, I was forced to swap out the modified bsa for the original (thank goodness I kept it!). Everything is back to normal including the 90 year old wood elf in a 20 something body lol!!

 

I did attempt originally to copy the voice files into the data folder per the instructions and also set the archive invalidation as best I could figure out. No real options except click button, select what types of files are affected and click "update". I'm using Oblivion mod manager for all of this, including the repack of the bsa file. Also, I'm running the Steam version of Oblivion which may make a difference since it seems the file hierarchy is somewhat different depending on which version of Oblivion is used.

 

Really, I am really hoping I can eventually find just a basic mod that I can load using Oblivion mod manager like all the others I've installed without having to deal with bsa files and archive invalidation etc., but maybe for replacer type mods all the extra steps are required?

[Striker879]

In OBMM click on Utilities then select Archive Invalidation from the menu. In the Archive Invalidation dialogue select BSA Redirection, click on Reset BSA Timestamps and then Updated Now. Close OBMM and you're done.

 

Resetting the BSA timestamps is important if you use the Steam version of the game ... using all of their infinite wisdom, Steam decided to redate the vanilla game BSA to a modern date, thus breaking BSA Redirection for all their users.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Striker879