Converting Sound Folders Into BA2 Archives

[BlasterMasterCaster]

Hi, I have a question about turning Sound Loose Files into BA2 Archives for which I've found no answer. I am consolidating BA2 Archives using Creation Kit Archive2.

I know the following:

1) Sound folder should go in - Main.ba2

2) I know I should NOT compress contents in the Sound folder, I should convert audio without compression BUT!

Am I suppose to have two main.ba2s? One " - main.ba2" with scripts, materials and meshes that have been compressed and another " - main.ba2" with uncompressed Sound, or what am I missing here?

Do I have to rename " - main.ba2" like main1.ba2 and main2.ba2 or something?

Because when I go to Archive2 and select File > New > Compression > General and add Materials, Meshes, and Script with compression, how am I then supposed to remove compression for the Sound contents while keeping the rest with compression?

I don't see the option of removing compression for Sound in a specific BA2 archive with both Sound and the rest of the folders.

Or am I supposed to make a third BA2 archive, something like

- main.ba2
- sound.ba2
- textures.ba2

?

Or do I have to leave compression to "None" for all contents of the BA2 archive? Like there is no choice but to leave everything: Materials, Meshes, Script, and Sound without compression? Won't that affect Materials, Meshes, and Script, to be left uncompressed?

Every post I've read about ba2 Sound without compression only talks about not adding compression to Sound, but those posts are always short of mentioning how do I get the above done. lol I am going crazy over this. lmao

Thank you for taking the time to read and for your help. :)

Edited September 23, 2019 by BlasterMasterCaster

[icestormng]

Whenever you use sounds (either PCM or xWMA) in your Main.ba2 you have to disable compresssion for the whole archive. CK does that automatically.

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

[BlasterMasterCaster]

Whenever you use sounds (either PCM or xWMA) in your Main.ba2 you have to disable compresssion for the whole archive. CK does that automatically.

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

Thank you icestorming for clarifying. Now I know. :smile:

 

Now I just have to find out why the ba2 archive I did with some weapons mods won't work in-game. Do you know about this icestorming?

 

I merged some weapons into the main and texture archives but those weapons won't show up ingame in the Chem Station where they are supposed to. I guess the problem must be related to the .esp. I was using.

 

I was using a blank/dummy esp from this post:

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22079/?tab=files

 

My guess is that the blank .esp doesn't convey the information the game needs to make those weapons available ingame, but how do I do this?

 

EDIT:

 

I did a crazy experiment myself and I can't believe it seems to actually be working. I haven't tested all weapons, but the ones I've tested so far have worked!

 

This is what I did.

 

I took all the weapon mods I wanted and turned them into Loose Files. I then merged those files with "Merge Plugins" and took the .ESP lol

 

Then I took the BA2s I had already merged directly from the NMM Mod Installs and put the new .ESP along with the BA2s I had already created.

 

So far so good!

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by BlasterMasterCaster

[icestormng]

Why do you want to merge the plugins? What about making light masters out of them? Most weapon most don't have anything near 2048 records. So you can set the ESL flag to the header with FO4Edit. You may have to compact FormIDs with CK before. That way they don't count towards your 254 Pugin limit but instead towards the 4096 ESLs limit. And you don't break mods that rely on these weapon mods (if that even matters).

[BlasterMasterCaster]

Why do you want to merge the plugins? What about making light masters out of them? Most weapon most don't have anything near 2048 records. So you can set the ESL flag to the header with FO4Edit. You may have to compact FormIDs with CK before. That way they don't count towards your 254 Pugin limit but instead towards the 4096 ESLs limit. And you don't break mods that rely on these weapon mods (if that even matters).

Merging plugins was the first random idea that came to my head and it worked, but if there is a simpler way to accomplish what I need then I would definitely roll with the easier method. lol

 

This is the first time I have merged mods into BA2s so I am learning here.

 

I wanted to merge several weapon mods (I merged 10 as a test) into single BA2 files: Main + Textures

 

But I didn't know how to make the game recognize those two BA2 files when the game loads so that the game shows me the content of those BA2 files ingame.

 

I used a dummy/blank plugin - that indeed worked for a ba2 texture merge I did (Vivid Fallout All In One, FAR Faraway Area Reform) but that blank .esp didn't work for this new merge I did for the 10 weapons.

 

I have compacted FormIDs with FO4Edit to great success, like 80 out of 100 percent of my efforts.

 

But are you suggesting something here icestormng? Are you telling me that I don't need any merged .esp plugin? Can I just use the normal plugins from the mods I merged into those 2 BA2 files, and they will work with the content inside those BA2s and the weapons will show up ingame?

 

I thought I had to create a special plugin to pair with those merged BA2s:

 

WEAPONSMERGE - Main.ba2

WEAPONSMERGE - Textures.ba2

WEAPONSMERGE.esp/esl

 

I would definitely use another method that doesn't require mo to unpack BA2s, create Loose File versions of those same mods, use Merge Plugins to merge all those mods, just to get that merged plugin with all those 10 weapons to make those BA2 work ingame, but that is the only idea I could come up with lol Is there another method?

[payl0ad]

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

 

This is incorrect. You can make a "- Sounds.ba2" archive and it will load up fine. "- Misc.ba2" also works, FYI. Fairly certain you can also use "- Materials" and "- Interface" but I haven't tried those myself.

[icestormng]

 

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

 

This is incorrect. You can make a "- Sounds.ba2" archive and it will load up fine. "- Misc.ba2" also works, FYI. Fairly certain you can also use "- Materials" and "- Interface" but I haven't tried those myself.

 

 

Sure? I've tried that numerous times and the "Sounds" plugin never loaded that way. The only archives that loaded for me where "Main" and "Textures".

[BlasterMasterCaster]

 

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

 

This is incorrect. You can make a "- Sounds.ba2" archive and it will load up fine. "- Misc.ba2" also works, FYI. Fairly certain you can also use "- Materials" and "- Interface" but I haven't tried those myself.

 

What about when you archive mods into a BA2 with the correct limit of 2000 MBs but the size of the content you packed is bigger than 2000MB and Archive2 creates you a second BA2 file renamed with numbers?

 

If I remember correctly Archive2 gave me two separate BA2s and named them:

 

- Textures1.ba2

- Textures2.ba2

 

Or something similar.

 

Does that still work? Do we still get the benefit of performance with that?

 

I didn't like that renaming so I slashed the content size. lol

[payl0ad]

 

 

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

 

This is incorrect. You can make a "- Sounds.ba2" archive and it will load up fine. "- Misc.ba2" also works, FYI. Fairly certain you can also use "- Materials" and "- Interface" but I haven't tried those myself.

 

 

Sure? I've tried that numerous times and the "Sounds" plugin never loaded that way. The only archives that loaded for me where "Main" and "Textures".

 

 

 

Absolutely. I have made a habit of archiving any mod I want to use before installing it, if it ships as loose files. Even small stuff gets archived, so I do not clutter up my Data folder and everything is controlled by load order. In some cases I've also poked into the archives a mod ships and I frequently see "- Main.ba2" files without compression and sounds contained. The CK does it this way for some arcane reason.

 

You can extract those, put the Sound\ and Music\ folder into a "myMod - Sounds.ba2" archive without compression and then pack up the remainder non-dds files into a compressed archive. Did that often enough to be 100% certain it works. Quite often saves a lot of file size, especially so if you have very few sounds and a lot of meshes (e.g. LODs).

Edited September 25, 2019 by payl0ad

[payl0ad]

 

 

You can only have a Main.ba2 and one Textures.ba2. All other files are not loaded for mods.

 

This is incorrect. You can make a "- Sounds.ba2" archive and it will load up fine. "- Misc.ba2" also works, FYI. Fairly certain you can also use "- Materials" and "- Interface" but I haven't tried those myself.

 

What about when you archive mods into a BA2 with the correct limit of 2000 MBs but the size of the content you packed is bigger than 2000MB and Archive2 creates you a second BA2 file renamed with numbers?

 

If I remember correctly Archive2 gave me two separate BA2s and named them:

 

- Textures1.ba2

- Textures2.ba2

 

Or something similar.

 

Does that still work? Do we still get the benefit of performance with that?

 

I didn't like that renaming so I slashed the content size. lol

 

 

BA2 doesn't have a 2GB file size limit actually, it supposedly is a 64 bit format. I have seen archives in the upper single-digit GB range but don't know if there is a soft or hard limit below 64 bit. Look at Old World Radio for example, its Sounds archive is almost exactly 6 GB. Luxors texture packs touch the 4GB mark.

 

The archives should still provide a substantial performance advantage. Compression works regardless, might even be beneficial to operate on smaller archives for threading. Doesn't really matter if you have to keep one, two or three dozen file handles around though, as long as you don't make it a few hundreds to thousands by introducing loose files. I'm fine with a few very large archives though.

Edited September 25, 2019 by payl0ad