DDSopt Question

[Zerocloud411]

So the guide says to put the batch files with the HDDLC1-3 folders in the "working directory". What does that mean? I assumed it meant Data folder but the batch logs says nothing happened.

 

Also considering the sheer amount of ridiculous things needed to be done just to play Skyrim properly (ie: cleaning masters and files, boss, wrye bash vs./+ NMM, load orders, etc..etc...) I am suprised that no videos except the one about cleaning by Gopher are on youtube about this. It would be much appreciated if somebody could take it upon themselves to make a video tutorial like Gophers on DDSopting and the like. Something that would otherwise get unnoticed by 99% of the modding community. Thanks for your time.

[Kelmych]

A "working directory" is one that is used to prepare files and other data before putting where the game or any of the mod managers can see it. It doesn't matter where it is as long as it isn't located in a game directory (e.g. in Skyrim or a subdirectory) or any of the mod managers directories.

 

I've started to work on a quickstart tab for DDSopt that has only the steps someone would use the first time you use DDSopt. That might be the basis for someone to create a video.

 

Videos are great, but they often focus on a single path through the tasks; e.g., cleaning a mode with TES5Edit which is done one and only one way. They are, in my opinion, most useful for straightforward but somewhat tedious tasks in which there aren't a lot of choices that have to be discussed. If there is a tree structure of choices and steps, it's very challenging and time consuming to plan and make a useful video. Using DDSopt isn't nearly as straightforward as mod cleaning, but some aspects might be (such as the one I mention above).

[Zerocloud411]

Ok thanks. So then why does the guide say to take the files out of "vanilla Extracted" and then back in. I was under the impression that Vanilla Extracted was a "working directory" already.

 

And yeah a video would be hard but I think people need to be educated on how to use mods before just downloading everything on the nexus page left and right. (I know from experience lol).

 

EDIT: Also do I need to keep the dlc .esp files after converting them to loose files? And why is "Selecting the DDSopt Texture Resolution for Vanilla Textures" at the bottom of the wiki page? I spent 3 hours processing everything only to get to that telling me I have to do it again. My default happened to be 8192 x 8192 which is twice the maximum recommended value (also the same values shown in the pictures of DDSopt that the wiki said to mimic). Do I have to redo it at a lower resolution now?

[Kelmych]

You don't need the HRDLC esp files after converting the HRDLC textures to loose files. The "Selecting the DDSopt Texture Resolution for Vanilla Textures" section is referenced in the same step that says to process the data. The max resolution parameter you used is fine; with the values you used the output textures are optimized and are at same resolution as the input textures. If you need to use DDSopt to also reduce the texture resolution for large textures then you can use lower values for the max resolution limit parameters to cause this.

[Zerocloud411]

Ah ok I see. Thanks for the help. I just tried to see if it worked and got purple textures so I'm going to reformat steam and try again tomorrow haha

[Zerocloud411]

When making the BAIN complex archive of HRDLC1-3 and STD, about 3000 files are not configured out of the 33k found. Should I just make it one folder of "textures" starting with STD and then replacing files on top with HRDLC1-3?