Jump to content

How to pack Skyrim SE mods


Prometheus

Recommended Posts

From what I understood and feel free to correct this procedure if you feel its wrong.

  • The Archive tool in the tools should not be used.( doesn't compress and doesn't convert )
  • The archive tool in the CK is bugged and doesn't pick all the items in a mod
  • The CK inner packer is the one to be used , the other in loose folder is old and not supported

 

  1. Pick all the loose files of the mod and drop into the Data folder  ( the loose files are needed and shoudl be used from the CK to load the mod )
  2. load the esp and save ( this generates possible extra content that might bee needed like facetint files and facegen )
  3. login to Bethnet
  4. Select create archive and pick windows
  5. delete all the listed items
  6. go into each folder of your mod and drag and drop the loose files ( not the folders ) into the window
  7. proceede to do this for each single file needed for the mod, the paths will be automatically setup in the archiver list
  8. once finished loading all the needed files into the list export that list as archive file to be used later .
  9. pack the files for pc and it will ask two saves , one for normal BSA and one for Textures BSA that will be converted and compressed ( here is the big difference with the other external archive tool in theloose folders)
  10. save the bsa file just like the name of your esp and the textures one like "yourmodname - Textures.bsa"  this will pack the files and  allow to be uploaded for pc
  11. Now create new archive , delete the files in the list and import the archive list exported at point 7
  12. pack the files for xbox , but save those inside the subfolder of data called "XB1" and not simply in the data folder
  13. save as naming at point 10
  14. now save and close
  15. in the creation kit ini, set under [Archive] at the line SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim  add the line "Mymod.bsa, Mymod - Textures.bsa" of course renaming to your mod name.
  16. delete the loose folders
  17. load the CK again checking that the files are correctly loaded by using simply the bsa of the pc version
  18. login to bethnet
  19. upload for PC , follow the procedure create a mod name and description overwrite files if you created a mod in precedence and you are updating its content.
  20. repeat procedure at 19 for console.

 

Note that the new texture pack will be considerably smaller than the original file size, for example my Conan hyborian age file size was over 700 mb in original bsa from skyrim , now its like 300 mb, I checked that unpacking it opens into over 600 mb so seems to be correct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Prometheus,

 

#2 as far as I know this is not correct. One cannot;

 

"2 load the esp and save (this generates possible extra content that might bee needed like facetint files and facegen )"

 

To create facegen files highlight all your mods created actors in the CK, then press ctrl + F4. This will generate texture and face meshes. 

 

source: http://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Dark_Face_Bug

 

Thanks for posting these instructions. They were helpful otherwise and appreciated. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Prometheus,

 

#2 as far as I know this is not correct. One cannot;

 

"2 load the esp and save (this generates possible extra content that might bee needed like facetint files and facegen )"

 

To create facegen files highlight all your mods created actors in the CK, then press ctrl + F4. This will generate texture and face meshes. 

 

source: http://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Dark_Face_Bug

 

Thanks for posting these instructions. They were helpful otherwise and appreciated. 

From internal talks in beta seems it was fixed and the step is no more needed. Now its automatically generted . I simply collected those files and put in my mods and so far had no gray faces. But also I do not have many npcs so ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Prometheus is correct. The SE CK auto-generates facegen for any NPCs the mod has. You just need to gather up the files when they get created.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The error still showed up in the CK for me (until I generated the files). Maybe it's part of my mod's esp?

 

Anyway, thanks guys. I appreciate the information. If you need any mods tested let me know I'd be glad to help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From internal talks in beta seems it was fixed and the step is no more needed. Now its automatically generted . I simply collected those files and put in my mods and so far had no gray faces. But also I do not have many npcs so ...

 

Were they in the same path they use to be? data > textures > actors ....?

 

Also when you say you put them in your mod, you mean you still had to add those files to the .bsa manually?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I remember, when BSA packer opens from CK, you can save and load a file that lists all your assets.

If you have a large amount of files to add do it manually the first time and then save the list file. This is a time-saver.

On previous CK I had to make my own list file by using a command dos (dir /b >file.txt) and then edited the file.txt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I remember, when BSA packer opens from CK, you can save and load a file that lists all your assets.

If you have a large amount of files to add do it manually the first time and then save the list file. This is a time-saver.

On previous CK I had to make my own list file by using a command dos (dir /b >file.txt) and then edited the file.txt

Its still better you delete all and redo your list couse the CK tends to miss files.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dragonbone Ebonsteel Armor SE by Dreogan was recently uploaded and I want to put all these loose files into a bsa since it has a connecting esp. Im on PC and this is for personal use, not uploading anywhere I just want to keep my mods a little more organized. I loaded the mod via NMM activated the plugin. Loaded up the new CK, once all files were loaded I went to File\create archive and it brought up about five or six warnings: TEXTURES: (null) :  (null) is missing an environment map, and then the CK crashes. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...but shouldn't there be a window pop up with a list of files for the mod?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • The CK inner packer is the one to be used , the other in loose folder is old and not supported
What is a "CK inner packer"?

 

Just ignore what he's saying, because he's wrong.  I'll just copy/paste what I said in the Nexus thread here:

 

From what I understood and feel free to correct this procedure if you feel its wrong.

  • The Archive tool in the tools should not be used.( doesn't compress and doesn't convert )
  • The CK inner packer is the one to be used , the other in loose folder is old and not supported 

 

Can you please remove this from your post?  As I already told you in the private CK beta forum, this is completely incorrect.  It compresses just fine and is not "old and not supported" considering Archive.exe is what the CK calls on the command line when packing the BSAs.

 

As you already shared with me in the private forum, you simply didn't know that you had to check the option "Compress Archive" and as far as conversion goes, it's completely irrelevant, as anyone can unpack their Skyrim BSAs with any number of programs, and repack it using Archive.exe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Just ignore what he's saying, because he's wrong.  I'll just copy/paste what I said in the Nexus thread here:

 

 

Can you please remove this from your post?  As I already told you in the private CK beta forum, this is completely incorrect.  It compresses just fine and is not "old and not supported" considering Archive.exe is what the CK calls on the command line when packing the BSAs.

 

As you already shared with me in the private forum, you simply didn't know that you had to check the option "Compress Archive" and as far as conversion goes, it's completely irrelevant, as anyone can unpack their Skyrim BSAs with any number of programs, and repack it using Archive.exe.

 

 

The reason I came back here is my textures are not showing using the bsa (all my custom textures are purple ingame) I created using the new CK. 

 

Also, thank you for your quick response and for the information! This part is really holding me up and I have work early tomorrow... damn if there is always something to hold you up such as information like this!

 

Thanks again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason I came back here is my textures are not showing using the bsa (all my custom textures are purple ingame) I created using the new CK. 

 

Also, thank you for your quick response and for the information! This part is really holding me up and I have work early tomorrow... damn if there is always something to hold you up such as information like this!

 

Thanks again.

are them in the right folder be4 packing ? Did you drag them into the window ? does the bsa has the correct name like yourmod - Textures.bsa?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Just ignore what he's saying, because he's wrong.  I'll just copy/paste what I said in the Nexus thread here:

 

 

Can you please remove this from your post?  As I already told you in the private CK beta forum, this is completely incorrect.  It compresses just fine and is not "old and not supported" considering Archive.exe is what the CK calls on the command line when packing the BSAs.

 

As you already shared with me in the private forum, you simply didn't know that you had to check the option "Compress Archive" and as far as conversion goes, it's completely irrelevant, as anyone can unpack their Skyrim BSAs with any number of programs, and repack it using Archive.exe.

Its what I had been told by Bethesda in a private mail , I wouln't remove it unless you can show that it packs fine for Xbox converting and compressing the same way it does when used by CK .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its what I had been told by Bethesda in a private mail , I wouln't remove it unless you can show that it packs fine for Xbox converting and compressing the same way it does when used by CK .

 

Funny how there is no documentation for this from Bethesda. Why are we having this discussion? Why don't they just post this information?

 

Please, if anyone finds where this is posted by an official source by all means do link it! My searches come up nil and frustrated.

 

Thanks folks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Archive.exe is what the CK calls on the command line when packing the BSAs.

 

Have those been documented somewhere ? I know you can write script-like stuff in a text file to pack stuffs in batch, but command line sound more flexible and reliable for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny how there is no documentation for this from Bethesda. Why are we having this discussion? Why don't they just post this information?

 

Please, if anyone finds where this is posted by an official source by all means do link it! My searches come up nil and frustrated.

 

Thanks folks!

I just lamented the problem with the ck and in a private mail Gstaff told me that after showing the image of the editor I was using ( the outside one ) he referred that its the old version and that I shoudl use the internal one .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have those been documented somewhere ? I know you can write script-like stuff in a text file to pack stuffs in batch, but command line sound more flexible and reliable for me.

He are some replies by SMKViper from CK beta forum which is still active actually, but not accessible to public. I don't think it is a private or a secret information.

 

 

To clarify, there is no "internal" archiver in the CK.

The CK is simply calling archive.exe with some command line options to build the BSA. (After doing platform-specific conversions of some files)

I typically avoid recommending using the archiver externally, because there are various requirements and other things you can "get wrong" on accident, which the CK won't. So it's usually a cleaner workflow to let the CK do the packing. Especially if making a mod for a non-PC platform where PC-format files will degrade performance or (at worst) crash the game

 

 

 

Archive.exe doesn't convert textures. xtexconv.exe does that for Xbox textures. IIRC the command line for xtexconv is "-nologo -xbox -o \"%s\" \"%s\"" with the first %s being the output folder, and the second being the dds to convert. It's also possible the SSE CK is converting audio to XWM as well, but I don't have it in front of me to check (the Xbox can load WAV, but, as you well know, XWM is a compressed format which is more important on the limited space the Xbox has for mods). Though it can't convert all WAV files to XWM due to limitations in the XWM file format (I think looping markers won't work? I'm not the audio guy).

Edit: Again, I don't recommend packing archives yourself, as the CK will handle the conversion and pick the right settings for you, as well as the right names.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were they in the same path they use to be? data > textures > actors ....?

 

Also when you say you put them in your mod, you mean you still had to add those files to the .bsa manually?

 

As it turned out many of the custom meshes that had more than just a few objects in them could no longer show textures properly if at all. A new version of nifskope helped a little (as one I downloaded was terrible), but I still can't fix them all. Not that strong with nif so.. there is that.

 

Thanks for asking prometheus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...

I just converted a mod from Oldrim to SE and found that manually regenerating FaceGen content is needed. The CK does automatically convert, but seems to get it wrong. Ctrl+F4 fixes the issue.

Curiously, the auto-generated head looks perfectly good in NifSkope, but is near-black in-game. I regret that I didn't keep the auto-generated instance to compare to the good one, to find out what's going wrong. Maybe I'll remember the next time it happens.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am also having a couple of issues with facegen in the SSE creationkit. It generates all of the files but for vanilla characters (The courier for example) it still puts the gen files under the mods name not skyrim.esm this is leaving the black head bug unless the files are moved manually. Any ideas?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Curious about the default setting in CreationKit.ini:

bUseArchives=0

Believed not to be used by the game here. Wonder if there is any change in archival functionality if this is switched on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/10/2017 at 8:58 PM, Kelsenellenelvian said:

I am also having a couple of issues with facegen in the SSE creationkit. It generates all of the files but for vanilla characters (The courier for example) it still puts the gen files under the mods name not skyrim.esm this is leaving the black head bug unless the files are moved manually. Any ideas?

I think that this is intended, as the NPC remains the vanilla character FormID/RefID, even when overridden. However, the presence of the FaceGen file in your Data folder then conflicts if your mod's esp is not active. Once the facegen data is packed in the bsa, it turns on and off with the esp (unless you left the loose file behind). The same happens in SLE, it's not SSE-specific.

The black-face problem I'm trying to track down affects the player, and goes away when you simply save and reload. I'll understand a lot more about the engine when that makes sense.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

Pardon the necrobump but you may want to revise this. It doesn't seem to be possible to upload premade archives to bethesda.net anymore. If you try to do it now, it will hang forever and never upload anything. You have to remove the bsa file from your folder and then attempt your upload. You'll have to create a new archive in the process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure Prometheus is even still modding Skyrim, but you are correct. Any existing archive must be removed before attempting to upload to Bethesda.net, which means you'll have to let the CK pack the files. A task made somewhat easier by development versions of Wrye Bash since it can now produce the archive list to import into the CK to tell it what files to pack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...