NifSkope .dds naming

[Arcueid Brunestud]

So this week I've been sorting and filing all that mods that I've been hoarding like a true mental person in the past into a it's proper place and gave Skyrim another try using my old full-of-bugs-saves which dated way back on the 1st May 2013. Yeah it's full of bugs, blablabla, so on and so forth. I'm forced to promptly removed all of the mods I had installed before after 1 second of hesitation, verified Skyrim integrity, and then installed UNP female body replacer, some CaBaL120 hi-res texture, and 2 random armours mods of which I selected by rolling a dice several times.

 

In and all, the only meshes that were added are the UNP one, and 3 random armours that I got somewhere in the intricacies of cyberspace.

 

Being away and negligent from modding for a quite a time, my thimbleful knowledge of modding suddenly becoming so rustic that practically it safely to presume it's nil.

 

Therefore, what I would like to ask are as following:

• Does the .dds file's name in the hard-coded .nif's file had to be precisely in the exact manner and naming as the mod texture's name in their respective texture folder? Also, I believe the texture path is not case-sensitive, but spelling and form sensitive. Do please correct me if I make a blunder with that statement. 
• Will it only affected Skyrim, or all other Gamebryo's games, viz. Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Oblivion.

I'm admitting that I'd renamed the .esps but I don't move about the file pathing in Skyrim folder nor do I rename the pathing in any of the .nif files. Yeah I got those infamous pinkish texture and sometimes Skyrim decided in it's best interest to grab any random textures as it well damn please. Whilst in some sort of twisted way, some may argue it's cute, I believe I would like the correct one, no thank you.

 

If it help, I'm tinkering the .esp a bit in CK and edited 1 or 2 attributes via FO3Edit. Nothing much, I just get rid-off the containers and a localisation to English of said unknown mods in here and there. Suddenly I have this feeling that I contradicting what I had just wrote before. Hmmm... Never mind you that.

 

Also, my deepest apology if you're not in a slightest, interested with the way I presented the question and for me not following the standard format that we all are agreed upon. 

[myuhinny]

The dds file has to be has to have the exact file folder path as the one in the nif if they do not then the will be white in nifskope. To see if a texture path is correct load it into nifskope and go to render then follow the mods folder path till you hit the data folder then click data and hit ok if the mod doesn't have a data folder then just click the folder path till you get to the folder before the mesh and texture folder and hit ok. They are not case sensitive but they do have to be spelled correctly.

 

If something is not rendering check and see the texture being used if it is using a in game texture file then it will not render in nifskope unless you extract the texture file from the BSA. 

 

To check a texture path of something not rendering in nifskope is to load the nif into nifskope then click the part in the nif that is not rendering and then click the little arrow left of the BSShaderTextureSet below the highlighted line in the left to get the drop down then double click to the right of the purple flower looking thing in the blank area and check the folder path in the nif with the folder path for the textures if they are incorrect fix them.

 

It could also mean that the nif is using textures from a different mod and if you do not have that mod installed then it will not render either until you install the mod.

[Arcueid Brunestud]

Thank you for clearing the half-part of my doubts, but the real question I'd been meaning to ask is the about the .dds file. Specifically, it's name in the .nif file. With your answer, I began to remember some of the tweaks and hacks I did back in ye olden days where I ruled supremely on LL taking down... Okay forget about that.
 
I'm perfectly understand what you trying to explain, but bear with me for a seconds. You are correct, and I won't contest that the wrong texture path in the .nif files would definitely lead to a glitch where your mod's texture in-game won't render correctly, viz. the pinkish texture and also, I do aware that a wrong texture path won't render the texture properly in NifSkope. However, I remember some post I read a long time ago, that, the displayed texture in NifSkope is not always reflected what Skyrim will render in-game will be exactly the same, a deception if you will.

 
As so, what am I trying to ask is this;

Would an entirely different name of the .dds file, as oppose what had been hard-coded into the .nif files, results a failure to rendering the textures correctly in-game?  e.g.;

textures\kerberos\armor\beltd.dds   <<-- This is what it look like under the texture node of "Block Details"' window of the BSShaderTextureSet branch in .nif file.

 
But, the .dds files within the textures\kerberos\armor\ mod's folder, doesn't contain any reference of "beltd.dds". The only file that a close resemblance to that name is "beltD.dds", with the letter D capitalise as oppose to the .nif files which had the letter d lower-cased.

 

So, will it or will it not, render properly in-game, if I don't change it's name in the .nif file, into the "beltD.dds" one? And this is a new question based on my previous question; Will it only affected Skyrim, or all other Gamebryo's games.

[myuhinny]

High cap letters have no bearing on it as long as the path and name are spelled correctly in *both* the _0 nif and _1 nif if one is correct but the other isn't then there would be a problem as then it will not change in game but as long as the paths and spelling are correct in both nifs there shouldn't be any problems. If you change something in the _0 nif you must change the same thing in the _1 as well or it will not work in game.

 

 

 As you can see in the first picture on how the texture path is on the 2nd picture you can see that I purposely changed the texture name to all high cap it still rendered fine. Not sure if the n.dds files or other ones like it affect anything or not. 

[Arcueid Brunestud]

Once again I can never thank you much for your time to answer my question and to go out of your way to even provide me with a screenie of NifSkope.

 

I've been digging around my history's browser and searching the web for the said post, and here it is;

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=27325#p27325

 

This is the excerpt of the whole quote that intrigues me:

 

 

"though remember that what you see in nifskope is not always how it will appear in game."

 

I know it's for another game and I will shamelessly ask you to endure it with me here; I'm in under the impression that all Gamebyro's game, shares it's quirks, and let us pretend it is in-fact, a truth. Basically you are right about the capitalisation and I also can successfully rendering the texture inside of NifSkope even with .dss file's name lower cased and capitalised. However, I want to know what will happen in-game if you using the a different name for the .dds, as oppose the one's that been supplied with. What I'm asking of is, the thing that would and will occur inside of the game, in-game, whilst we have been talking about what would happen outside of the game.

 

I can't fired-up Skyrim, or FO3, or F:NV, and even Oblivion at the moment because this isn't my gaming system and it's playing dead on me. I had to send it to a technician and they said my motherboard is basically fried-up and in need of replacement which can take about 2-3 weeks or so, including shipment, assessment, and all. Had I, been not so aggressive on FarCry 4, my motherboard, blessed it, would let me test my doubts once and for all. And the fact I still got a month worth left for warranty has been a major reasons I don't start hacking random passer-by with an axe. A bloody big wood axe.

[myuhinny]

I just found out today working on trying to get 2 armor mods that are the same except for one piece to appear correctly even after changing the texture path in the one nif set and changing the sets folder names the original armor would still appear in game for the other armor set there were 2 armors but both looked the same. I did some looking in the .esp with TES5EDIT and saw that there were texture paths under armor addon once I changed the folder name to the correct one for the 2nd set adn saved and then loaded the game up both armors are now appearing correctly. So if something doesn't appear just the way it does in nifskope then look at the .esp for any hardcoded paths that will trump whatever you do in your nif.