As the topic stated. I cleaned some mods with TESTool with restricted cell and dialog cleaning options enabled, but I still have that comment on my TESTool.log, what does that comment mean? Especially Texture Fix 1.8.esm has most of those records cleaned, so I wonder what does that comment mean? Thanks in advance.

It means that that cell has no objects (things with ID) references, but do has landscape/texture changes, so it is correctly skipped from cleaning.

Huh!? Does that mean any cell record with that comment attached is NOT cleaned with TESTool? Then why is it listed on my TESTool.log?

Another question: Many mods that adds new landmass(Ald Vendrass, Whitewolf, Annastia, WI, TR, Silgrad) has some CELL records cleaned with TESTool(even with restricted cell cleaning options enabled)?Is it safe to remove such records?

Sorry to ask this question, I'm new to morrowind, and prolly confused with so many tools to clean mods(unlike Oblivion with only TES4Edit)

logs are usually not for errors only, but to understand what happens and why...Usually, it is 99% safe. If TESTools (with restricted cell cleaning on) removes the cell, it means it has not found any object reference/texture/landscape changes, a really "VOID" cell. The only thing I think could cause problem is with a mod using a new, completely "VOID" garbage interior cell to store killed things by script (this was used mainly before the setdelete command was added to the scripting engine), but this should be rare and easily solved putting inside that cell any static reference (I.E. any architecture piece, a single coin...) so TESTool will recognize the cell as "not void".No probs, Morrowind has many quirks and many tools trying to solve them, sometimes with overlapping options, so it probably needs more practice

Good morning!

I would like to add a related question to this thread. Is there ANY good reason to keep a cell in a mod if the ONLY changes to the cell were LAND record alterations? With the exception, of course, for landscape-altering mods specifically, like Slartibartfast's. I've been wondering if I should go back and manually delete some of these cells AND their associated LAND records, just to keep stuff running clean.

Rochndil, who is, yes, a bit of a neat-freak...

I suspect it's okay to remove it if you really want. The Construction Set probably puts the empty cell in there to make sure the edited LAND record has an associated CELL. But I leave them in, they really can't do much harm.



I'd assume that if a LAND record is in a plugin, it's probably there on purpose because the landscape was edited intentionally. If you do remove it, you'd have to check the results in-game to make sure it looks okay.

It is true that TESCS or the modder sometimes may introduce some unneeded/unwanted changes to some cells, this usually causes no problems in game.
As I, too, don't like unclean mods, this is what I usually try to do:
- backup mod for safety
- clean mod with TESTool, with both Restricted dialog AND Cell cleaning ON.
- copy from TESTool.log the list of empty cells changing landscape or empty interiors and paste in a text editor

empty exterior cells:
- load the mod in TESFaith#, put Morrowind.esm as background mod and compare displayed map with the cell list; this usually eases finding possible cell candidates for deletion
- load the mod in TESCS and take a look at what kind of landscape changes are in cell candidate to deletion
- if cell can be deleted, delete it using TESFaith# (faster) or TESCS Files\Data Files\Details
- load mod in TESCS, check deleted cell margins and eventually fix landscape seams or undo

empty interior cells:
- load the mod in MWEdit, look for text references to that cell inside scripts
- if cell is used by some position/positioncell command, and cell is empty, load MOD in TESCS and just put some static in the cell so it is empty no more; empty unused interior cell can be deleted

Hi I hope people don't mind my hijacking this thread to ask a simple question.

When cleaning with TESTool - under what circumstances should I choose to ignore either tribunal or bloodmoon?

I think I may be doing something wrong when i download a mod that already has the prefix 'clean' and in 'Clean gnisis.esp' and yet when I run TESTool without an ignore on Tribunal and Bloodmoon and I get records cleaned out of it.

Am I messing up?

thanks

I'd only ignore Tribunal.esm or Bloodmoon.esm if the mod in question is reliant on Morrowind.esm alone.
About plugins being named "Clean something.esp": you can glue the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ecstasy onto a jalopy's bonnet: it still doesn't become a Rolls Royce. In other words: just because it's called "clean", it doesn't have to be. In fact, I am very suspicious when I see that "clean". In far too many cases those mods are particularly dirty. So if you look at a mod and find it to be dirty, it probably is.

B

Funny - and I concur - I don't trust that either.

The thing is I already cleaned a pile of mods that were only reliant on Morrowind without ignoring those two masters - do you think there will be a problem?

thanks

I wouldn't worry too much: you've probably got Tribunal and Bloodmoon installed, so it's only sensible to check mods for conflicts with them.

Sometimes modders include Tribunal and/or Bloodmoon assets with their mods, intending to offer the same experience of their mod to players without the expansions. Those assets have references which will be seen as duplicates if checked against Tribunal.esm or Bloodmoon.esm - as bhl pointed out, someone with the expansions would want the refs cleaned to avoid unnecessary conflicts whereas someone with just Morrowind would not have them since the expansion esms would not be present.

Such mods could be considered by the modder as "clean" by design. On occasion I've seen a note in a mod's readme mentioning that checking for conflicts against the expansion master files with a utility such as TEStool will report duplicate entries if the expansions are installed - it's a thorough modder aware of the situation that includes such a note.

Ignoring Tribunal.esm and Bloodmoon.esm is more useful when merging objects then when cleaning plugins.

In a mod, landscape data stores information regarding the shape and appearance of the landscape whilst cell data stores inforemation regarding the objects placed on the land such as trees , buildings , rocks etc.

It is a bug , quirk or feature (not sure which) of the construction set to create a corresponding cell record for every exterior cell in which you alter the land, a bit like creating a folder in anticipation that after you have alterred the land you will also add/delete/reposition objects to it ? An empty cell record is essentially an empty folder containing no data and can be safely deleted.

Texture Fix primarily contains landscape data only and correspondiing cell records needlessly/erroneously created by the construction set were deleted.
There are a few cell records in Texture Fix which pertain to the pond mesh fixes , this is because some of the pond meshes are incorrectly aligned in the original Morrowind and in Texture Fix i aligned them correctly and this information being object information is stored as cell data. If you open up the cell records in Texture Fix using the Enchanted Editor you can see the pond meshes and their new position co-ordinates listed therein.