A tip for people that I use, Download your favourite texture replacer mod. Vivid Fallout, FlaconOil, Texture Optimization Project ect.
If its BA2, unpack it. Then just keep that as a back up base somewhere. Copy it and from there, find all the separate texture replacer mods you like on nexus, Download them manually (loose files preferably if available, If not Unpack the ba2's to loose) and copy/paste them into the correct folders of the Main replacers (FlaconOils etc) loose files. Say yes to overwrite if propted, as long as you prefer the texture you are overwriting with. If the correct Folders don't exist, copy the folders over too.
For example, in Flaconoils Loose Textures folder. You can download Detailed Feral ghouls, Spiffs Gravel and Dirt, Better Rubble by Flecked, Tookies Roads, Tookies Green Grass and Plants, Yellow Forklifts, 4k Sentry bot etc etc.. and just Unpack them if required and copy each texture into the corresponding location. Or if no location matches in Flaconoils Textures, Just copy over the Whole folder. So for Detailed Feral Ghouls You might just copy and paste the Actor Folder if an Actor Folder didn't exist in FlaconOils Textures. I have so many textures from so many texture replacer mods. some overwrite others and I like some parts from some mods but not from others. This way, I can make my ultimate texture replacer.
Finally when done, Pack it all into a BA2. that requires only the one FlaconOil.Esp. Name it accordingly. Keep The unpacked BA2 on file because you dont want to keep packing and unpacking a BA2 everytime a new texture comes along you want. I think the compression will degrade quality if doing that.
This of course is only for mods that do nothing other than replace vanilla textures. And its best to use something for a base that most likely won't be updated anymore.
And it should also be mentioned that the maximum size of any BA2 is 4.2GB, due to restrictions from Bethesda. It is possible to create larger archives and the game won't hang or crash with them loaded, but anything that comes after the 4.2 mark simply won't be loaded. There is a good reason Flaconoil and others split their archives up.
Thanks for those replies. I am glad to know I can unpack and repack BA2s as many times as I want. I Got an indication it was a bad idea from the FO4 unofficial patch page. What I do know is saving textures as BC1 then opening and editing them again will cause issues. I thought maybe ba2 compressed files in the similar manner coz the file size shrinks when you pack into ba2.. plus what F04UP page says about unpacking repacking.
I won't pretend to know much about this stuff tho.
As for exceeding 4gb. Also good to know. I guess There are steps in Texture Optimisation project that I used.. So saying pack into one BA2 was kinda not correct, but could be if using just Vivid fallout or something and adding 1 k texture replacers.. I start with Texture Optimization Project. Then With FlaconOil I found a lot of normal maps that were double the size of the diffuse. I reduce them to the same size and for specular I reduce to half size of diffuse.
All in all, I think still, FlaconOil is just one esp. and you can really just save some esp slots if you do some things. I am not the best to explain it. most people here probably know this already.
Anyway thanks for the warning about the 4 gb limit. I may have made error without knwoing that.
According to Arthmoor the limit is around 4.2GB since there is also one BA2 from the high-res dlc that has around that size.
What I do know is saving textures as BC1 then opening and editing them again will cause issues. I thought maybe ba2 compressed files in the similar manner coz the file size shrinks when you pack into ba2.. plus what F04UP page says about unpacking repacking.
BC1 is a lossy compression format, so yes, each time you save it in that format it will loose some information and quality will degrade, but BA2 or BSA archives work basically like a zip/rar/7z file and simply compress your files into an archive, but without any loss of information and therefore no degradation of the files it contains.
All in all, I think still, FlaconOil is just one esp. and you can really just save some esp slots if you do some things. I am not the best to explain it. most people here probably know this already.
Depends entirely on which version you use, I use the highest resolution one and that exceeds 4.2GB in its compressed state, so it requires 2 esps to load, if you are using a lower res version you might stay below 4.2 and can use a single one.
I have done this too. I use Texture Optimization Project as a base then overwrite with all my prefer textures, a good way to test which textures are better and what overwrites what is to install only the texture mods in a portable installation of mod organizer 2 and from there use MO2 compare tool to decide qhat textures are the best, then copy and paste each texture mod in the order you have in MO2.
I have a question, I didnt know about the 4gb limit the .ba2 format have so I made a huge 9.09gb .ba2 archive and is been loaded into my game with a dummy esp and I dont have any problem right now, all of my textures seem to be loading fine so, what is the worst it can happen if I exceed the limit if everything seems to be good?
I have a question, I didnt know about the 4gb limit the .ba2 format have so I made a huge 9.09gb .ba2 archive and is been loaded into my game with a dummy esp and I dont have any problem right now, all of my textures seem to be loading fine so, what is the worst it can happen if I exceed the limit if everything seems to be good?
Like I said, anything after 4GB simply won't load, you might not have noticed this, but over 50% of your textures are not being loaded. Just unpack your ba2 and in archive2.exe you can actually set the maximum archive size, so archive2.exe will automatically split your output into multiple archives to accommodate the file size limit you set.
I honestly don't know why the vanilla textures are so blurry. They're not even particularly low resolution, but they just went with such an extremely flat and vague style that the game looks like it's still loading in even during active gameplay.
Hey man, another question for you as you really seem to know your stuff on textures; I found your Forsytha fix and it looks like a similar issue might be present in pine trees. It might be a mesh property tho, idk. But from the top down, the pine branches look good and the correct colour, but from underneath they look far too dark, It possibly might even be the opposite, I cant recall right now but what I do know is it doesn't look natural or like shadow etc.
Another example is Dried Grass (01? I think) from one side it looks bright and the other side it looks very dark. Do you know of any fix for this?
For now I can confirm that pine branches' textures are dark similarly to forsythia. Appropriate materials use just 2 textures (diffuse and normal), so probably the imitation of subsurface effect relies on diffuse color.
And since there are no dedicated subsurface textures for pine branches - brightening those textures up most definitely will cause them to look translucent like grass, both bark and needles ,which is weird.
24 comments
Hey that's great! I totally forgot you can do that!
So I can just add all of my ba2 archive file names to the ini settings and forget about the .esp's?
Going to test this and update if and when I get to it.
Thanks for this, I hope it works.
Thank you!!!
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/33484/
If its BA2, unpack it. Then just keep that as a back up base somewhere. Copy it and from there, find all the separate texture replacer mods you like on nexus, Download them manually (loose files preferably if available, If not Unpack the ba2's to loose) and copy/paste them into the correct folders of the Main replacers (FlaconOils etc) loose files. Say yes to overwrite if propted, as long as you prefer the texture you are overwriting with. If the correct Folders don't exist, copy the folders over too.
For example, in Flaconoils Loose Textures folder. You can download Detailed Feral ghouls, Spiffs Gravel and Dirt, Better Rubble by Flecked, Tookies Roads, Tookies Green Grass and Plants, Yellow Forklifts, 4k Sentry bot etc etc.. and just Unpack them if required and copy each texture into the corresponding location. Or if no location matches in Flaconoils Textures, Just copy over the Whole folder. So for Detailed Feral Ghouls You might just copy and paste the Actor Folder if an Actor Folder didn't exist in FlaconOils Textures. I have so many textures from so many texture replacer mods. some overwrite others and I like some parts from some mods but not from others. This way, I can make my ultimate texture replacer.
Finally when done, Pack it all into a BA2. that requires only the one FlaconOil.Esp. Name it accordingly.
Keep The unpacked BA2 on file because you dont want to keep packing and unpacking a BA2 everytime a new texture comes along you want. I think the compression will degrade quality if doing that.
This of course is only for mods that do nothing other than replace vanilla textures. And its best to use something for a base that most likely won't be updated anymore.
I won't pretend to know much about this stuff tho.
As for exceeding 4gb. Also good to know. I guess There are steps in Texture Optimisation project that I used.. So saying pack into one BA2 was kinda not correct, but could be if using just Vivid fallout or something and adding 1 k texture replacers.. I start with Texture Optimization Project. Then With FlaconOil I found a lot of normal maps that were double the size of the diffuse. I reduce them to the same size and for specular I reduce to half size of diffuse.
All in all, I think still, FlaconOil is just one esp. and you can really just save some esp slots if you do some things. I am not the best to explain it. most people here probably know this already.
Anyway thanks for the warning about the 4 gb limit. I may have made error without knwoing that.
BC1 is a lossy compression format, so yes, each time you save it in that format it will loose some information and quality will degrade, but BA2 or BSA archives work basically like a zip/rar/7z file and simply compress your files into an archive, but without any loss of information and therefore no degradation of the files it contains.
Depends entirely on which version you use, I use the highest resolution one and that exceeds 4.2GB in its compressed state, so it requires 2 esps to load, if you are using a lower res version you might stay below 4.2 and can use a single one.
I have a question, I didnt know about the 4gb limit the .ba2 format have so I made a huge 9.09gb .ba2 archive and is been loaded into my game with a dummy esp and I dont have any problem right now, all of my textures seem to be loading fine so, what is the worst it can happen if I exceed the limit if everything seems to be good?
Like I said, anything after 4GB simply won't load, you might not have noticed this, but over 50% of your textures are not being loaded. Just unpack your ba2 and in archive2.exe you can actually set the maximum archive size, so archive2.exe will automatically split your output into multiple archives to accommodate the file size limit you set.
Thanks for your work.
Another example is Dried Grass (01? I think) from one side it looks bright and the other side it looks very dark. Do you know of any fix for this?
Appropriate materials use just 2 textures (diffuse and normal), so probably the imitation of subsurface effect relies on diffuse color.