Mod Organizer - export all active textures from virtual data directory

[dunc001]

Is there a way yet to export the complete current virtual textures directory from MO into a single consolidated textures folder complete with correct directory filetree, ready to run just those active textures through Optimizer? My mods folder is currently around 120gb so running Optimizer on the complete directory even with a clever ini is not feasible for me.

 

I have seen mention if running something like FreeCommander from within MO but haven't seen anyone reporting success or otherwise. It could also be useful to do the same with the meshes folder to allow checking of only active meshes with NifHealer.

[Neovalen]

I would imagine you could have MO hook into a file utility of your choice then copy paste the Data/textures folder from the Skyrim dir.

 

Haven't tried it but theoretically possible.

[Joat_Mon]

Looking at the code, the original file paths are not preserved in the user space VFS. So there is no automatic method to put the corrected files back into the correct NTFS file on disk. You would still need to intervene manually to direct the fixed file to the correct directory based on your personal knowledge of your load order, patches, forwarded assets, etc..

[Greg]

This is how I would do it. In Mod Organizer, create a link to a new application:

Title: Command Prompt
Binary: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Start in: ...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\data

Basically, you want the command prompt to start in the Skyrim/data folder so you don't have to do a lot fiddling to get to the data folder each time you run it. Now run the Command Prompt application and enter this command line:

md E:\Textures
xcopy textures E:\Textures /s /e

You should change E:\Textures to the folder you want to copy the textures to, but this essentially copies the entire textures folder from the virtual file system to a new folder of your choice.

Looking at the code, the original file paths are not preserved in the user space VFS. So there is no automatic method to put the corrected files back into the correct NTFS file on disk. You would still need to intervene manually to direct the fixed file to the correct directory based on your personal knowledge of your load order, patches, forwarded assets, etc..

EDIT: If I'm not mistaken, Mod Organizer should overwrite the appropriate files as they are exposed in the virtual file system when these files are changed. If it's a new file or folder, it may go into either the Overwrite virtual folder or Skyrim's data folder. This of course assumes this is a 32-bit application hooked by Mod Organizer with access to the virtual file system.

[Joat_Mon]

This is how I would do it. In Mod Organizer, create a link to a new application:

Title: Command Prompt
Binary: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Start in: ...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\data

Basically, you want the command prompt to start in the Skyrim/data folder so you don't have to do a lot fiddling to get to the data folder each time you run it. Now run the Command Prompt application and enter this command line:

md E:\Textures
xcopy textures E:\Textures /s /e

You should change E:\Textures to the folder you want to copy the textures to, but this essentially copies the entire textures folder from the virtual file system to a new folder of your choice.

EDIT: If I'm not mistaken, Mod Organizer should overwrite the appropriate files as they are exposed in the virtual file system when these files are changed. If it's a new file or folder, it may go into either the Overwrite virtual folder or Skyrim's data folder. This of course assumes this is a 32-bit application hooked by Mod Organizer with access to the virtual file system.

Could you just treat the corrected files as a new mod and overwrite all?

[Greg]

Yeah, that would certainly be the easiest option. Just create a new mod folder (say mods/Optimized Textures) and move everything directly into that folder without worrying about the VFS at all.

[Kelmych]

While it may be feasible to do this, I don't think it's sensible to run any optimizer on all the textures in a normal profile. You could potentially identify the mods that have textures that are sensible to optimize and use an MO profile with only these mods and then use the techniques discussed above. Typically there aren't very many mods that are sensible to optimize with a texture optimizer. If this is the goal it's easier to copy the mod folders (from the MO\mods folder) for these mods into a new temporary folder and then run DDSopt on the temporary folder to create new optimized versions of the selected mods. The resulting individual mod folders of optimized mods can then replace the original unoptimized versions, and the temporary folder can be deleted.

[dunc001]

Could you just treat the corrected files as a new mod and overwrite all?

This was exactly what I was suggesting, one single load last Optimized Textures mod (either directly into the mods folder for refresh or into overwrite for Create Mod).  That way no risk of textures within the original mods being deleted by mistake and if the optimised textures cause a problem simply remove the new mod and you're back to where you were.

[Kelmych]

I'm not sure I understand your comments. The suggestion I made does not yield one mod; it doesn't change the number of mods at all. It provides one new mod folder with optimized textures for each original mod folder. A key point is that this isn't done for very many mods since there aren't many that benefit from optimization, unless of course you are using a GPU with 1Gb VRAM and trying to use a lot of mods.

[dunc001]

I'm not sure I understand your comments. The suggestion I made does not yield one mod; it doesn't change the number of mods at all. It provides one new mod folder with optimized textures for each original mod folder. A key point is that this isn't done for very many mods since there aren't many that benefit from optimization, unless of course you are using a GPU with 1Gb VRAM and trying to use a lot of mods.

I was replying to a post above yours.  The whole point is I am NOT wanting to run optimizer on every texture in every mod in my mods folder as it would take forever (800+ mods, 130Gb total folder size).  I have spent months prioritising textures in MO, reordering, hiding, etc to arrive at a look I am happy with (for now) and I now want to optimise only the winning textures, those in the virtual data directory which are actually used in game.  And I know that not all textures will benefit however a large number will, and given that if you are using correct ini/settings in ordenador you can pretty much ignore previously optimised textures, avoiding optimising skin textures etc I can't see the harm.

 

What I am suggesting is exporting a complete copy of the virtual data/textures directory, running optimizer with all the necessary settings and tweaks on that complete folder, then installing the optimized folder as a new mod in MO, bottom of the left pane so has priority over everything and therefore provides all of the winning textures.  Then like I say if anything is messed up it can simply be removed from the new mod, or the mod removed altogether.

 

Ganda has already produced a proof of concept for the exporter, I'm going to give the full process a try later and we'll see what the results are.  Nothing ventured nothing gained!