[LE] Back to modding. Forgot everything. Help!

[antstubell]

So haven't modded for years and now have to use CK from Bethesda.net - ok then. Unpacked Meshes0 and Meshes1, tried to change a Misc object's model to a Static (potion bottle that can't be interacted with) and when I go to paste in Model Location it says Invalid Directory. What's happening here?

 

Edit: I've changed Meshes0 folder to Meshes and I can now mess around with nifs. Will this affect any upload I do in the future? What about Meshes1? I can't have two folders of the same name.

[Hoamaii]

Oh God, I can relate to that: going back to the CK after months of not opening it, I had forgotten half the shortcuts!..

 

You need to keep all your meshes, modded or not, in the same "meshes" directory under "Data". Just create your own mod's folder with your custom name inside the Vanilla "Meshes" folder and place all your custom meshes in there. Whatever you do, whatever you create, your folders hierarchy must be the same as the Vanilla one. (Unlike Fallout 4, which now has its own "user" directory for modded scripts inside the "source" folder).

 

Good luck with rediscovering the CK!.. :laugh:

[antstubell]

So I shouldn't have renamed Meshes0 to just Meshes? The only way I could make CK access the Meshes (previously Meshes0) folder was to rename it. The file structure goes... Data/Meshes0. After renaming it, it goes like the old CK Data/Meshes/ but as I said this will probably mess up the upload structure. At the moment I am just using existing models to make statics. If I leave it as Meshes0 CK has no idea of where to save or find existing nifs.

Thanks for your help but still confused and worried that all the work I do will be lost in the end because of a folder name.

[Hoamaii]

Oh, gosh, I have no idea why your CK would want to call your meshes folder "Meshes0" - I got mine from Steam years ago, but I can't imagine the version you got from Bethesda.net would make such a drastic change to the base game structure.

Double-check your SkyrimEditor.ini file, going to section [Archive], you should see something like that:

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
SArchiveList=Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa
SInvalidationFile=ArchiveInvalidation.txt
iRetainFilenameOffsetTable=1
iRetainFilenameStringTable=1
iRetainDirectoryStringTable=1
bCheckRuntimeCollisions=0
bUseArchives=1
SResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa, update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa
SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa

See, no "Meshes0" in there...

 

Best way to test if your work is properly saved is to create a custom folder in Meshes, place some Vanilla mesh copy in there, and try to load that mesh to some custom form you created in the CK - that'll open the CK's path to your game Data.

[antstubell]

Hmm. There are 9 Textures bsa folders to unpack. Textures0 to Textures8. Why do I do here?

[Hoamaii]

Oh, ok, you're talking about Skyrim Special Edition then...

The [Archive] section of your CreationKit.ini should then look like that:

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
bUseArchives=1
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes0.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes1.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices_en0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures1.bsa, Skyrim - Textures2.bsa, Skyrim - Textures3.bsa, Skyrim - Textures4.bsa, Skyrim - Textures5.bsa, Skyrim - Textures6.bsa, Skyrim - Textures7.bsa, Skyrim - Textures8.bsa, Skyrim - Patch.bsa

 

I can see what causes you confusion. But that makes no difference. Any loose file .nif you want to add will still need to be added to a "Meshes" folder which you need to create inside your Data folder. Same as Oldrim. You can't add anything to the Vanilla .bsa's - these are packed archive files.

[antstubell]

Yes, Special Edition. So you're saying I shouldn't unpack any of .bsa files, create my own Meshes and Textures folders (which have to be called Meshes and Textures because CK reports Invalid Directory if they are not), and place all my meshes and textures in said folders. If I want to use an existing .nif file or texture file then I have to unpack the .bsa files, find the mesh and nif I want and copy them into my own Meshes and Textures folder. Am I correct?

[Hoamaii]

You can unpack your .bsa's all you want, and when you do, you'll see that all meshes will go into a "meshes" folder in your Data folder.

 

If your intent is to just use an unmodified Vanilla .nif, then no, you don't need to extract or copy it into a mod's folder - when you save your .esp in the CK and load it in game, the game will fetch the proper mesh in the Vanilla .bsa.

[antstubell]

I appreciate your help but you are not quite getting it. This is what I have had to do to make a simple static potion bottle. The 'old' way was to choose a static object, a vase in my case, duplicate it, edit the model and point it to, what used to be, Data/Meshes/Clutter/potions/…..nif. Because the .bsa and unpacked .bsa is labelled Meshes0 (where the .nif I want is) CK can't find this path - Invalid Directory. Renaming Meshes0 to Meshes solves this but this folder contains every mesh in the game. Other method is creating a new folder called Meshes and copying the required .nif from the unpacked Meshes0 folder to the created Meshes folder then CK can 'see' the file structure correctly.

So CK can't see the Meshes0 folder, which is where all the .nifs are. Only solution is to make a new Meshes folder and copy the .nifs I want to use from unpacked Meshes0.bsa into new Meshes folder. I realise this duplicating but I don't see anyway around it and am not sure how/if this would affect an upload.

[agerweb]

There should never be a meshes0 or meshes1 folder. If you extract the SSE meshes they all will go in the meshes folder. If this not happening theres something wrong with whatever your using to extract the bsa.

 

I'm using BSA Unpacker what are you using?