Slowly working my way through the instructions, need some help on Forgotten Argonian Roots

[FamousDeadGuy]

I can't figure out how to make MO organize it correctly. It says "no game data top level" even when I make a separate folder for it. Normally, I can click on the top archive and "set data directory" but it just breaks the folder down further and further. I know this is something simple. I have just been working at it for like 20 minutes and I figured I would throw this out there.

Edit: I decided to package the male textures and female textures as separate mods. It looks like it should work..

I noticed that when I when to add bash tags to my amidianborn.esp, that none of the texture replacer .esp's showed up. Any idea where I messed up? 

Edited March 8, 2014 by FamousDeadGuy

[MonoAccipiter]

You need to navigate to the folder including the version you want (in SR:LE's case Males/Better Males Body and/or Females/UNP/MAIN) right-click it and click on "Set data directory". You should then see a folder called "meshes" and one called "textures", and MO should tell you that it looks good. You can do this twice (one for each gender) and simply merge the second time, or you can drag the "textures" and "meshes" folders over from the one you want for males, to the one you want for females (or vice versa). The first option is probably the least confusing of the two. 

Edited March 8, 2014 by MonoAccipiter

[FamousDeadGuy]

You need to navigate to the folder including the version you want (in SR:LE's case Males/Better Males Body and/or Females/UNP/MAIN) right-click it and click on "Set data directory". You should then see a folder called "meshes" and one called "textures", and MO should tell you that it looks good. You can do this twice (one for each gender) and simply merge the second time, or you can drag the "textures" and "meshes" folders over from the one you want for males, to the one you want for females (or vice versa). The first option is probably the least confusing of the two. 

No that makes sense, I figured that out after about an hour. I am still learning the "rules" of how to make files play nice. What do you think about my second question? Now that I look at it, almost none of the texture .esp's are showing up..

Edited March 8, 2014 by FamousDeadGuy

[MonoAccipiter]

Most texture replacers don't have plugin-files. The only reason Book of Silence has one is because it adds several variations of some existing armours (e.g. Thalmor Glass Armor & Steel Glass Armor). Was that what you were wondering about?

[FamousDeadGuy]

Bash Tagging Required: (Bash Tagging Guide)

• aMidianBorn_ContentAddon.esp (DELEV, RELEV)

This part. This .esp doesn't show up on my Wrye Bash. Either that, or I am blind.

[MonoAccipiter]

Did you remember to download the optional "aMidianBorn - Content Addon" file from the Nexus? Check the file in MO, if it isn't there, go to BoS' page, re-download and re-install that file, choosing merge when asked what to do.

 

EDIT: You should download the optional "aMidianBorn - Content Addon" file from BoS' Nexus page, and make sure you use the plugin version found in the "Improved Closefaced Helmets version"-folder.

Edited March 8, 2014 by MonoAccipiter

[FamousDeadGuy]

Like this?

Is that the correct file path?

[MonoAccipiter]

You need to move that file out of the "Improved Closefaced Helmets version"- folder and into the "aMidianBorn - Content Addon"-folder, you can then delete the now empty folder "Improved Closefaced Helmets version"-folder. The problem was that due to your folder structure, MO would put the plugin file in a sub folder instead of the data folder, when you launched Wrye Bash.

[FamousDeadGuy]

So I double clicked the "aMidianborn - content add on" clicked on the "optional ESPs" tab and moved it from "optional" to "available" this makes me wonder how many mods I have to do this for...

[MonoAccipiter]

You shouldn't have to do that for any files as long as you install the plugins in the top level folder (e.g. with "textures" and "meshes" etc).

[FamousDeadGuy]

You need to move that file out of the "Improved Closefaced Helmets version"- folder and into the "aMidianBorn - Content Addon"-folder, you can then delete the now empty folder "Improved Closefaced Helmets version"-folder. The problem was that due to your folder structure, MO would put the plugin file in a sub folder instead of the data folder, when you launched Wrye Bash.

Oh. Well I will revert my previous changes then and fix the structure. Thank you.

So the trick is the having the ESP's in the top folder? I guess that is something that I didn't realize. I wonder what else is messed up because of that..

When it says in the guide..

• textures/dlc02/landscape/dlc2basaltcolumnsingle*.dds (High Resolution DLC is superior.)

Does that asterisk denote removing ALL files with that name, even if a "_01" or something like that comes after it? If that's the case i have a lot of re-installing to do. I also wonder if that will mess up the intentional overwrites.

[MonoAccipiter]

Yes, the asterisk implies all files with that name and a postfix (e.g. if there were two files called dlc2basaltcolumnsingle01 & dlc2basaltcolumnsingle02). However, you don't need to re-install all the files where you misunderstood these instructions. Simply open up the mod, navigate to where the folder is located, and delete the corresponding files.Anything that would normally go in the "~Skyrimdata"-folder should always be top folder in MO (e.g. .bsa-files; .esp-files; folders called "textures" or "meshes" and so on).

[EssArrBee]

Oh. Well I will revert my previous changes then and fix the structure. Thank you.

So the trick is the having the ESP's in the top folder? I guess that is something that I didn't realize. I wonder what else is messed up because of that..

When it says in the guide..

• textures/dlc02/landscape/dlc2basaltcolumnsingle*.dds (High Resolution DLC is superior.)

Does that asterisk denote removing ALL files with that name, even if a "_01" or something like that comes after it? If that's the case i have a lot of re-installing to do. I also wonder if that will mess up the intentional overwrites.

Yes, the asterisk means to remove all the files that have something in place of it. You don't need to reinstall anything, use the hide function in MO. Just double click the mod go to the filetree tab and then find the files and hide them.

[FamousDeadGuy]

Thank you gentlemen. I will use the "find" command and work my way from the top of the page down, using "open in explorer" to find the textures and execute order 66. Don't go too far, I am mere seconds from blundering into another slip-up. Skyrim is hard.

[EssArrBee]

Do not use open in explorer to delete textures. Use "Information", go to the filetree tab, find the files, right click->hide.

[MonoAccipiter]

Having Skyrim installed on an SSD, I have limited space and therefore delete files, but if that's not a problem for you, hiding files works just as well. Not to mention the fact that if you blunder and hide the wrong file, there's no harm done. You can simply unhide it.

Edited March 8, 2014 by MonoAccipiter