merging mods

[Balboa2151]

hey all......hope I have the correct thread? I downloaded a preset body with several separate body armors and a sex animation mod that has that has several different animation folders......my question is how can I combine the several different folders into one so I don't have ten files for one mod? I think I might know how but wanted to make sure.....for example......if I want to merge separate animation that's an addon do I copy and paste data folder from one to the other? but then I'll have two data folders or do I have to copy all the HKX files....ect into the main folder to merge? armor for example.....I have ten to fifteen separate armors for one body that were made separate.....if I want to merge all these armors into one file and have one mod instead of fifteen? what i'm trying to achieve is keeping my mod count down so I don't exceed the limit. I would appreciate any help thank you

[Stratovarius]

To merge the mods together, open up the Creation Kit, select all of the esp files you want included, load all the data and save a custom esp file. That should do it!

[Balboa2151]

wow that easy.......thank you....i'll try it....thanks

[Balboa2151]

ok.......I have skyrim.esm file checked......then I have several of the single armors.esp checked that I want to combine.....when I get ready to combine do I click on "set as active file" or just click on " ok" ? another question......I have arrok's animation extention mod and it has several addon postions not included in the extention mod......how can I combine the addon's into the extention mod so I have one animation mod instead of having extention mod and several addon's? if I combine addon's into main mod will it corrupt animations?thank you

[Shaydow]

I ONLY install things manually, so I can only help with that. There is a reason I do this though, and if you follow it, you almost always know what you are in for.

 

1) install the mod. That is what you want to do right? Just copy and paste the mods data folder to your skyrim ( where data is ) folder. It will ask you if you want to MERGE a bunch of FOLDERS. You ALWAYS want to say yes to this. That folder structure is how mods work. All your saying is "why yes, I want this mod that says it needs to put things in data\meshes, to put it in data\meshes!"

 

2) now if what you are installing MANUALLY, says "wait, now we need to replace something from a mod you already installed!" you have to make a choice. Is this what you wanted? Did you say download animations that REPLACE the animations from the first mod you installed? If yes, then you want to hit "yup replaces those files!", HOWEVER, if you thought this was something new to use, you don't want to replace anything, and instead want to go back over what you were about to do.

 

3) if it just merges and never asks you to overwrite anything, your good ( most times ). Just load up something like NMM or what have you, make sure the mod is checked and loaded for the game in the listing, and go on about your way.

 

Everything else is unnecessary.

[Balboa2151]

i'm confused.....i'm using megalov's preset cbbe body......he has 7-10 armors that are single download.....I want to combine all the single armor downloads into one file and install through nmm because I don't want to exceed the mod limit for skyrim by having multible single files......i'm also using arrok's animation extention mod which has several animation addons that I want to combine so I only have one animation mod and not a bunch of addons that fill the mod limit.....is there   any way to  accomplish this? thanks please help

[Shaydow]

Are you really that close to the mod limit that you are going to break it? I've never come close.....

 

I leave all sorts of things in my Skyrim data folder. Things come and things go. When I want to uninstall something I just delete the esp. I especially like leaving the meshes and textures, for my own personal mashups.

[Bashis]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37981/? i use this to merge my stuff, works like a charm if you follow its instructions.

 

and shaydow, just because you never got near your mod limit doesn't mean others haven't, if i didn't merge my plugins i would be well over 100 .esp files over the limit

[Shaydow]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37981/? i use this to merge my stuff, works like a charm if you follow its instructions.

 

and shaydow, just because you never got near your mod limit doesn't mean others haven't, if i didn't merge my plugins i would be well over 100 .esp files over the limit

 

Very few mods to me deserve to be in an active list, I may have like 60 - 80 at any given time, maybe even less. However, I admit I AM biased, having made a rather large mod strictly for myself, that gives me exactly what I'm looking for. Most of my mods are difficulty / gameplay changes / texture slash graphics / balance mods. I have 93.2 gigs of MODS in my Skyrim\mods folder and my skyrim folder is 48.3 gigs.

[Balboa2151]

Are you really that close to the mod limit that you are going to break it? I've never come close.....

 

I leave all sorts of things in my Skyrim data folder. Things come and things go. When I want to uninstall something I just delete the esp. I especially like leaving the meshes and textures, for my own personal mashups.

I counted every mod in nmm and I have 220 mods..........that's why I want to combine some of these single mods that I have........I think it's stupid to have 15 separate armors for one body when I can try to combine them and make one folder to bring my mod count down :-)

[Balboa2151]

Bashis....seems like this is what I was looking for.....thank you......by what I've read its only safe to do files that dyon't have scripts in them......for example.....I downloaded arrok's animation extension mod......that has several addon mods associated with it......that would have scripts and therefore could not be combined or merged......correct? Is there anyway to combine or merge scripted Addon files so I don't have one main mod and several addons? Thanks again

[Bashis]

not sure, i just leave mods with scripts unmerged because there's a pretty high chance of stuff breaking when merging scripted plugins, im not going to pretend im a pro at modding and try to explain why, ive just never heard anyone say its a good idea to merge scripted plugins, but i have heard more than a few say its a bad move.

 

the thing i linked you to is pretty much for merging simple mods, things that only comes with mesh/texture folders, like most armor and weapon packs, with it i combined 107 armor/wep .esp files into 1 with no issues, but unless your in the experimenting mood i would leave things with scripts out of the mergers for now and just merge other things to reduce size.