Zerocloud411

Thank you for that in depth explanation. As for BSAs like the unofficial skyrim patch, I should just unpack the bsa and rearchive the loose files with the esp right?

Also if you were to remove the .bsas that means you'd have to remove the .esps and then BOSS would have no use right? EDIT: I just came across a mod that had loose files with an esp so I guess my past notion of esps being there just to activate bsas was wrong. So should I turn all my bsas into loose files then? Even the official dlc stuff and unofficial patches?

According to the wiki it says to repack bsa's back into bsas if they involve more than just textures/meshes "If you did not include any of the BSAs from the Dawnguard, Hearthfire, or Dragonborn DLCs, which contain multiple resource types in addition to textures, you can ignore these final steps. Now it is time to package the rest of the directories, if any, containing optimized versions of any of the these DLC BSAs you created. Unlike the directions for the optimized versions of the STD and HRDLC BSAs which contain only textures, we suggest that these be repackaged into BSAs since they contain a wide variety of resource types, not just textures. The notice above tells how to do this. Put these new BSAs into the Data directory, where the original BSAs that you moved in the previous step were originally located, as the output path. Use the name of the original BSA as the file name. The optimized BSAs will then replace the original ones. For example, the file name for the optimized Dawnguard.bsa would be "Dawnguard.bsa". Alternatively, you can use the same approach as we recommended above for the other BSAs and archive the folders as loose files."

Ok thank you. Also another question. https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26706 I just downloaded this mod. Would the correct course of action be to: Download->Extract->use BSAOpt to unpack the .bsa->DDSopt process the textures & meshes but not the scripts -> Repack optimized textures/meshes with scripts back into .bsa of same name -> archive whole thing back with the .esp? I just want to make sure I'm not ruining these mods

Ah ok, is that a good thing? Sorry I don't even know what normal maps are haha

So I am optimizing all my texture/mesh mods as the DDSopt guide says. I extract all the contents, then process the textures and meshes into an "optimized" folder and re7zip the whole thing back with the esp and fomod folders and all that other stuff I can't DDSopt. However I noticed that every time (with a single exception) I process, my optimized folder is very slightly bigger than the originals. An example would be 83willows bugs mod, which got bigger after optimization. Does this mean that she had a file compressed too small that needed to be using a bigger compression? Thanks for your time.

Ok thanks. Also I just got done extracting/optimizing the bsas (I did everything to the letter and I did nothing else but install Wrye and NMM) but I haven't replaced anything in the skyrim folder yet, and skyrim ctds right away. When I get back from school I'll replace the bsas with the backups to see what the issue is, but I'm just wondering: does DDSopt/BSAopt modify the original bsas? Becuase I can't fathom what else it could be since I did nothing but extract the bsas to a completely different drive. I actually think it might be BSAOpt rather than ddsopt because it was working after I extracted the HRDLC1-3 and STD. EDIT: Nevermind, it seems to be the Vanilla Skyrim mod I made for some reason was causing problems, so I did as you recommended and removed it and just used the backup files. It works fine now thanks for all of your help.

I only use Wrye Bash and NMM (to check for mod updates). So does that mean I should still make a mod out of the "Interface, Strings, Video" folders? Also what is a reason to use MO alongside Wrye? I've heard Wrye beats it in every department.

When making the BAIN complex archive of HRDLC1-3 and STD, about 3000 files are not configured out of the 33k found. Should I just make it one folder of "textures" starting with STD and then replacing files on top with HRDLC1-3?

I see you removed the "Make a Vanilla Base Mod" Section. Do I still need to do that?

Ah ok I see. Thanks for the help. I just tried to see if it worked and got purple textures so I'm going to reformat steam and try again tomorrow haha

Ok thanks. So then why does the guide say to take the files out of "vanilla Extracted" and then back in. I was under the impression that Vanilla Extracted was a "working directory" already. And yeah a video would be hard but I think people need to be educated on how to use mods before just downloading everything on the nexus page left and right. (I know from experience lol). EDIT: Also do I need to keep the dlc .esp files after converting them to loose files? And why is "Selecting the DDSopt Texture Resolution for Vanilla Textures" at the bottom of the wiki page? I spent 3 hours processing everything only to get to that telling me I have to do it again. My default happened to be 8192 x 8192 which is twice the maximum recommended value (also the same values shown in the pictures of DDSopt that the wiki said to mimic). Do I have to redo it at a lower resolution now?

So the guide says to put the batch files with the HDDLC1-3 folders in the "working directory". What does that mean? I assumed it meant Data folder but the batch logs says nothing happened. Also considering the sheer amount of ridiculous things needed to be done just to play Skyrim properly (ie: cleaning masters and files, boss, wrye bash vs./+ NMM, load orders, etc..etc...) I am suprised that no videos except the one about cleaning by Gopher are on youtube about this. It would be much appreciated if somebody could take it upon themselves to make a video tutorial like Gophers on DDSopting and the like. Something that would otherwise get unnoticed by 99% of the modding community. Thanks for your time.