Nif optimization

[Guest ThatOne]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm posting this here because I've decided to randomly check my mesh folder for stuff to mesh up with... And I've found that about 55% of my nifs are dirty.

 

No, not that kind.

 

Anyone looking for more info should look into Simon's guide to cleaning nifs:

http://www.loverslab.com/showthread.php?tid=4963

 

Q: What is a dirty nif?

A: A dirty nif is a file with additional, unnecessary data that will take more space on your harddrive. Worse, it will make your game run slower.

 

Q: How do you tell if a nif is dirty?

A: A nif should have only one scene root (and nothing else). In the scene root there should only be the bones needed by the objects.

 

Q: How do I clean my nifs?

A: There are several things you can do to clean up a nif file.

 

1) Right click the "Scene Root", go to block -> crop to branch. This will eliminate everything outside the scene root (which is usually unnecessary).

STOP!! Now look at your mesh. Is everything there? If not, proceed to the following:

 

1.1) Some objects in your nif file are outside the scene root. That has horrible implications about file size, and possibly game performance as well. You need to check every entry outside the scene root and see if it's an object; if it is, right-click it, block -> copy branch. Now right-click the scene root, block -> paste branch.

Now you can delete the entry outside the scene root safely. Repeat this until you are left with your scene root alone. Any entries that are not objects should be deleted; right-click them, block -> delete branch.

 

2) Click anywhere in the render, optimize -> remove bogus nodes. This will eliminate any bones your nif file has but doesn't use. Yes, this is 100% safe.

 

3) Save your file, and exit.

 

Hopefully, this will reduce the number of dirty nif files, help people's game run faster and crash less.

[EvenstarGW]

http://www.loverslab.com/showthread.php?tid=4963

[Symon]

It's doubtless worth having a mention of the concept and a link to my thread here as well.

 

The number of views of the thread is quite low really.

[Guest ThatOne]

Thanks for the comments, I updated the first post.