NifSkope (by NifTools Devs)

[z929669]

UPDATE: The new Alpha pre 2 version works flawlessly with regard to getting textures from the MO virtual directory. You need run NifSkope from MO and then go to ...

Options > Settings > Resources > Paths

and let it autodetect your game directory (which will supply paths to all mod assets from the MO VD) and then let it autodetect your archives ...

Options > Settings > Resources > Archives

... done.

 

You will get all of your custom mod assets as well as any vanilla stuff that is not modded (I assume that resource prioritization adheres to game rules as managed by MO, and testing seems to indicate as much).

 

The interface is also much better in the Alpha version.

 

The devs have done an awesome job!

[DoubleYou]

The only limitation I can see MO having on it would be the same as with other utilities: BSAs that do not have a corresponding plugin enabled won't be read. But that's assuming that Nifscope reads the plugins list to load plugin-loaded BSAs (totally don't know). I do know that TES5Edit (see DynDoLOD) will not see BSAs through MO that are not plugin-loaded.

[GrantSP]

Learning curve on this one is high, but worth it.

Now for the 'dummy' moment, I made the incorrect assumption that the textures shown in the meshes displayed in NifSkope were somehow stored alongside the the *.nif, and not in the textures BSA. Duh.

Now as I look again the path displayed in the *.nif does show the correct location of the texture, I was just thrown by it because it is used by a number of different meshes with different uses and the 'restaurant' sign is just a minor one.

[zilav]

The only limitation I can see MO having on it would be the same as with other utilities: BSAs that do not have a corresponding plugin enabled won't be read. But that's assuming that Nifscope reads the plugins list to load plugin-loaded BSAs (totally don't know). I do know that TES5Edit (see DynDoLOD) will not see BSAs through MO that are not plugin-loaded.

BSA archives are registered manually in NifScope options.

[alt3rn1ty]

Old NifSkope will only load textures ( defined by the meshes path for its textures ) which are installed as loose files

So you need to extract the texture from the games textures bsa, and install them loose in Data \ with the same file path as it had in the bsa

It will not load them from bsa.

 

New NifSkope as pointed out by Zilav above, has acquired the ability to look in bsa for the required textures.

Aswell as GitHub see also this topic https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/4136-nifskope-20-dev/

 

Something made quite recently with this new version is MadCats Soul gems https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/65531/?

 

 

Edit : What happened to previous posts ?, this post does not make sense anymore because it was a continuation of the conversation.

Edited June 18, 2015 by alt3rn1ty

[TechAngel85]

Posts limit per page is 15, I think, so the next post will always be placed on a new page.

[alt3rn1ty]

Posts limit per page is 15, I think, so the next post will always be placed on a new page.

I think you have assessed that right, I was looking at page 1 and replied it with the box at the bottom, so then all the page 2 posts I had not seen before came up in front of my post  :facepalm:

[z929669]

Old NifSkope will only load textures ( defined by the meshes path for its textures ) which are installed as loose files

So you need to extract the texture from the games textures bsa, and install them loose in Data \ with the same file path as it had in the bsa

It will not load them from bsa.

 

New NifSkope as pointed out by Zilav above, has acquired the ability to look in bsa for the required textures.

Aswell as GitHub see also this topic https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/4136-nifskope-20-dev/

 

Something made quite recently with this new version is MadCats Soul gems https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/65531/?

 

 

Edit : What happened to previous posts ?, this post does not make sense anymore because it was a continuation of the conversation.

Actually, that is not my experience (see prev post). I can't get loose to work with 1.1.3, but BSAs do work fine. The Alpha resolves (see other prev post)

 

OP updated with more links

[alt3rn1ty]

Actually, that is not my experience (see prev post). I can't get loose to work with 1.1.3, but BSAs do work fine. The Alpha resolves (see other prev post)

 

OP updated with more links

Maybe thats because MO was providing the called for textures already extracted ?

Old NifSkope on its own cannot extract resources from BSAs, they need to be pre-extracted and installed in the expected path as defined in the nif

New Nifskope on its own .. Can

I am not talking about via MO, nor was Zilav in this post

 

You can probably appreciate during the course of making Vanilla Reduced Textures, and not being a MO user, I have had many an occasion where installing an original extracted texture to see how the original looks from every angle on its mesh has been a necessary evil to compare with my latest efforts on the mod textures. Where not having the originals installed for in game with VRT installed was the norm for a few years testing the actual mods textures in game.

Edited June 23, 2015 by alt3rn1ty

[z929669]

No, I ran outside of MO as well. You can allocate resource archives via File > Resource Files, and the textures are loaded from the archives.

EDIT: the resource files only allow BSA archives, so that seals the deal for me :P (below is the window that opens up when you select File > Resource Files under NifSkope 1.1.3)

 

... then again, I may be bat**** crazy ... perhaps you can verify my insanity?

[zilav]

Ability to read BSA archives was added before version 2, somewhere last summer afaik.

[alt3rn1ty]

That will be the reason, I am probably not running the most recent old version of NifSkope, but one which is still compatible with some special scripts I found a few years ago ( may have been updated since but I havent bothered to check, the setup did what I needed )

[Gutmaw]

So just loaded up NifSkope 2.0. and set it to load through MO.  Setup per initial post above in Option/Settings to path Skyrim/data file, and all my BSAs archives.  Textures (not sure from which BSA) seem to be loading to my meshes fine.

 

Couple questions...

1)  is there a way to tell which texture is loading to Nifskope from which BSA?  I see above that the texture being loaded should be in accordance with MO Managed resource prioritization, but is there a way to verify that (any hidden ways I can view texture path, etc?)

2)  I was under the assumption that since Nifskope can now read BSAs that I could, from within Nifskope, open a .nif from a loaded BSA.  Doesn't seem like I can do that still.  Should I be able to open a BSA archived .nif from within Nifskope?

 

Thanks!!

 

Edited September 5, 2015 by Gutmaw

[GrantSP]

Is there a way to compare two or more *.kf, *.nif files with this to see what differences there might be?

 

Obviously I can open two instances and do a manual check, but if there is a more efficient way.

[DoubleYou]

I have updated the OP to point to hexabits's Github, since that appears to be where all the development is around these days. I also added a link to the NifMania Discord. I also moved the topic out of Other Utilities Support into Other Utilities so it is grouped with all the other tool topics.