So I roommate asked me to retexture umbra as a challenge and practice,

However, when i replaced the files on his mac, and added the archiveinvalidation.txt to the data folder, upon playtesting, the normal map is working, but the diffuse texture is still that of vanilla Umbrasword.dds.

any ideas on a fix?

Skip messing with archiveinvalidation.txt and use BSA redirection instead. Comes with OBMM and Wrye Bash or the standalone Archive Invalidation Invalidated.

Thanks, did that, did some mesh edits (added env2) and now the texture is showing up pink regardless of my countless attempts to line up texture paths (all of which are correct)

any fixes?

Are you using relative paths (just 'texture/...) or the full path on the nif?

just textures/weapon/umbrasword.dds or whatever the filepath is

:shrug: The nif can't find the texture, you've made a mistake somewhere. You are in the best position to track this down. Sorry

the texture paths were incorrect, reading Textures/textures/weapons/umbrasword.dds. I fixed it, and it still showed pink...

Did you remove any "Archive Invalidation.txt" files from your folders already? Leaving them in while using a universal method like BSA-Redirection is known to cause pink meshes. And yes, there can be more than 1 of these in different folders even.

Other than that, could you perhaps upload the NIF somewhere for us to download? Then we could at least check if its structure and the way the textures are assigned are all correct.