Can someone help with converting loose files to BSA or changing a mod to prefer loose files over BSA?

[n00nex]

Basically trying to alter my download of https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21153  in which her "nude body" has permanent underwear.  I managed to unpack the BSA to loose files and delete the underwear textures so she would be fully nude when stripped of all clothing, but even after searching I don't know how to repack the loose files back to a BSA or to just make the mod get the body textures from loose files.  

 

Can anyone help with this?

[Mez558]

13 minutes ago, n00nex said:

Basically trying to alter my download of https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21153  in which her "nude body" has permanent underwear.  I managed to unpack the BSA to loose files and delete the underwear textures so she would be fully nude when stripped of all clothing, but even after searching I don't know how to repack the loose files back to a BSA or to just make the mod get the body textures from loose files.  

 

Can anyone help with this?

Don't bother repacking it, leave the files loose, the game always prioritises loose files over BSA ones and use these instead, it's how most texture/mesh replacers work.

Also, if you delete the underwear texture you're going to just end up with bright pink underwear. You need to delete the underwear "shapes" from the mesh. Outfit Studio or Nifskope should let you do this.

 

[n00nex]

13 hours ago, Mez558 said:

Don't bother repacking it, leave the files loose, the game always prioritises loose files over BSA ones and use these instead, it's how most texture/mesh replacers work.

Also, if you delete the underwear texture you're going to just end up with bright pink underwear. You need to delete the underwear "shapes" from the mesh. Outfit Studio or Nifskope should let you do this.

 

Thank you for replying.

 

Most likely it was a conflict with one of the 300 other mods I have, but even before trying to change anything, it was already the bright pink textureless underwear.  

 

I have also tried to just put the loose files back into the folder where the BSA's where but then her entire body has missing textures.  Do I have to put the loose files anywhere special, or just where the BSA's used to be?

 

I'll look into Outfit Studio and Nifskope to remove the shapes.

[Grey Cloud]

6 minutes ago, n00nex said:

where the BSA's where

The bsa would have been in your Data folder but that is not where the files should go.

When you extracted the files from the bsa, did you get a meshes folder and a textures folder? If so then drop these 2 folders into the data folder and the mod's files should land in the correct file path.

[n00nex]

10 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

The bsa would have been in your Data folder but that is not where the files should go.

When you extracted the files from the bsa, did you get a meshes folder and a textures folder? If so then drop these 2 folders into the data folder and the mod's files should land in the correct file path.

In the mod data folder or the game data folder?  I tried running the game with the bsa's extracted into loose files, but whenever I try to summon in her in game I just get a CTD.

[Mez558]

2 minutes ago, n00nex said:

In the mod data folder or the game data folder?  I tried running the game with the bsa's extracted into loose files, but whenever I try to summon in her in game I just get a CTD.

 

Body Mesh (I am guessing you are using CBBE) files will NORMALLY go into the data folder under meshes\actors\character\jwd-follower-f-nord-lagertha-1-cbbe\body

However, you are likely using a Mod Manager like MO2 or Vortex which would create it's own file structure (instead of using the games) so I guess you would need to put this in there, path should still be the same.

[Grey Cloud]

19 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

Vortex

Vortex uses the regular Data folder plus its own 'virtual' thing. The files would install to Data\meshes\actors\character\jwd-follower-f-nord-lagertha-1-cbbe\body and Vortex would work its magic when it 'deploys'.

 

MO and MO2 are a different kettle of kippers.

[n00nex]

22 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

 

Body Mesh (I am guessing you are using CBBE) files will NORMALLY go into the data folder under meshes\actors\character\jwd-follower-f-nord-lagertha-1-cbbe\body

However, you are likely using a Mod Manager like MO2 or Vortex which would create it's own file structure (instead of using the games) so I guess you would need to put this in there, path should still be the same.

I'm using UUNP and MO2.  I extracted the BSA's into loose files in the standard mod folder which for me is Mo2SkyrimSE/Mods/JWD'sLagathera

 

In that folder is all the mod files which is mainly the UNP and 2 BSA's.  I extracted the BSA's and removed the underwear with nifscope, and kept them as loose files in that folder but whenever I try to bring her up in game with just the loose files I get an immediate CTD.  If I revert back to BSA's then it runs fine.  

[Grey Cloud]

43 minutes ago, n00nex said:

In the mod data folder or the game data folder?

There is no 'mod data folder' as such. If when you extracted the bsa you got a data folder then inside that should be a meshes and a textures folder (and possibly other folders and files. Everything inside this 'mod' data folder should be dropped into the game data folder unless you are using MO or MO2.

 

I've just thought of a better way

Here's an extracted BSA of a follower I downloaded recently.

 

 

 

 

What I did is select the meshes folder, the textures folder and the esp and right click and add to archive. This creates a 7zip archive which I install with Vortex like any mod. Do not add the bsa to your archive.

You can delve into the meshes and textures to remove the unwanted files before you zip it up.

[Mez558]

51 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Vortex uses the regular Data folder plus its own 'virtual' thing. The files would install to Data\meshes\actors\character\jwd-follower-f-nord-lagertha-1-cbbe\body and Vortex would work its magic when it 'deploys'.

 

MO and MO2 are a different kettle of kippers.

Right good to know, I thought they both used "virtual" folders

[Grey Cloud]

1 minute ago, Mez558 said:

Right good to know,

I wouldn't go that far. I've been using Vortex for 4 or 5 months now and I still don't understand why it has its own thing but still uses the regular data folder.

[n00nex]

13 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

There is no 'mod data folder' as such. If when you extracted the bsa you got a data folder then inside that should be a meshes and a textures folder (and possibly other folders and files. Everything inside this 'mod' data folder should be dropped into the game data folder unless you are using MO or MO2.

 

I've just thought of a better way

Here's an extracted BSA of a follower I downloaded recently.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

What I did is select the meshes folder, the textures folder and the esp and right click and add to archive. This creates a 7zip archive which I install with Vortex like any mod. Do not add the bsa to your archive.

You can delve into the meshes and textures to remove the unwanted files before you zip it up.

That is an amazingly simple solution that I thought would work but when I tried that, I got the same problem.  A soon as I try to get her in sight, the game immediately CTD.  There's a good chance I'm just doing something stupid but it almost seems as if this mod was designed to ONLY work with BSA's.

 

I tried using nifskope to remove the underwear and then archived the loose files back into a BSA and I can get her to appear, but she is literally just teeth and eyes.  Like the old reports of that Assassin's Creed Unity bug where characters were missing their faces.  

 

I plan to work around with it a bit but I also have another possibly stupid question.

 

Could I just replace the body files with the "default" body type of my choices like just the standard CBBE or UNP?

[Grey Cloud]

56 minutes ago, n00nex said:

That is an amazingly simple solution that I thought would work but when I tried that, I got the same problem.  A soon as I try to get her in sight, the game immediately CTD.  There's a good chance I'm just doing something stupid but it almost seems as if this mod was designed to ONLY work with BSA's.

I can't try the follower as she is SE and I'm LE. I don't see why this would not work with SE though and it shouldn't cause a CTD.

If you installed your archive with MO then the files should be in the correct place. You could check that there is nothing in your Skyrim\Data folder left over from your previous attempts

 

You did extract both the bsa archives and put the contents of both into your single archive?

 

Just had a look at the posts on Nexus and the mod hasn't done much in two years and there are people having problems.

 

56 minutes ago, n00nex said:

Could I just replace the body files with the "default" body type of my choices like just the standard CBBE or UNP?

Yes but you would need to do the texture too.

 

Your default files will be in

Data\meshes\actors\character\ character assets\         [9 files - body, feet, hands and two x nif files and one tri file each]

copy these to

Data\meshes\actors\character\jwd-follower-f-nord-lagertha-1-cbbe\body 

 

You would do the same with the textures files (12 of them)

 

This is not really a good idea with MO

[RW311]

36 minutes ago, n00nex said:

That is an amazingly simple solution that I thought would work but when I tried that, I got the same problem.  A soon as I try to get her in sight, the game immediately CTD.  There's a good chance I'm just doing something stupid but it almost seems as if this mod was designed to ONLY work with BSA's.

 

I tried using nifskope to remove the underwear and then archived the loose files back into a BSA and I can get her to appear, but she is literally just teeth and eyes.  Like the old reports of that Assassin's Creed Unity bug where characters were missing their faces.  

 

I plan to work around with it a bit but I also have another possibly stupid question.

 

Could I just replace the body files with the "default" body type of my choices like just the standard CBBE or UNP?

 

What tool did you use for extracting the files?  Maybe the tool you used is screwing them up or maybe how you edit the nif or maybe how you placed the files since there is no reason files work or not because of bsa compression.

The body is already either cbbe or unp according to mod description so replacing it with nude version from bodyslide output would work fine unless you are not setting up the file structure correctly.

[n00nex]

54 minutes ago, RW311 said:

 

What tool did you use for extracting the files?  Maybe the tool you used is screwing them up or maybe how you edit the nif or maybe how you placed the files since there is no reason files work or not because of bsa compression.

The body is already either cbbe or unp according to mod description so replacing it with nude version from bodyslide output would work fine unless you are not setting up the file structure correctly.

I'm using BSA browser to extract the files and on the attempts to archive them back to BSA, Acrhive.exe.

 

If there's any better tools, I'll gladly try them out.

[n00nex]

Thanks for the help everyone I got it figured out .  It was all about just have the folders labeled plain "meshes" and "textures instead of JwdLagerthaetcetcettc as plain loose files.