In my installation Wrye Bain consequently ignores originally located replacers of body _n.dds.
The corresponding .dds is well shown ingame, but the _n.dds seems to be coming always from .bsa.

It's especially a problem with the headhuman_n.dds because gamesass original is very small and looks bad ingame.

I did the following without any success:
- activating BSA REDIRECTION in INSTALLERS tab and making a FULL REFRESH
- installing latest Wrye Bash version 2.77
- reinstalling ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa (installer version) from TESnexus
- replacing the whole Oblivion folder by a clear one (patched to 1.2) and anneling/ reinstalling all Bash Installers (including the body texture replacer)
- copying the replacers project (= folder) into Oblivion\Data and activating it in BASH REPLACERS tab

I have no idea what happens because all other textures and their corresponding _n.dds are shown correctly.

If I create an ArchiveInvalidation.txt with the _n.dds path it works, but all ears of all PC and NPC discolor to black after a few seconds.
It really seems Wrye Bash has a problem with body texture normalmaps. With OBMM I didn't have such problems (but others, like overwriting identical named files etc.).

First it has nothing to do with BAIN. Bain will just install the file(and from what you said it's installed).

The BSA redirection will only take the newest file, so if you modify your original .bsa package and the timestamp is newer than the one of the .dds file you installed it will ignore it.
Your problem most likely comes from there(since making an archive invalidation seems to fix it).

edit:
Replacer tab should not be used with bsa redirection.
In fact you should not need it at all with bsa redirection...

Well, the headhuman_n.dds shows following in Windows Explorer > Properties:
Created Feb 13, 2010
Changed May 1, 2009

The Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa:
Created Jul 26, 2009
Changed Jan 1, 2006

Best I can do is quote the Wrye Bash documentation:

Replacers TabThe Replacers Tab has now largely been replaced by the new Installers Tab. If you're currently using Replacers, you should move them to the Packages directory (preferably after converting them to archives). Textures BSAIf you're currently using the Textures BSA facility, you should switch to using the newer BSA Redirection method instead.•  Uncheck "Automatic".•  Click the "Restore" button to restore the Textures archive to its original state.•  Go to the Installers tab and activate "BSA Redirection" from the main context menu (right click on the main column header).

edit:
Also make sure ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa is active in the Oblivion.ini

Of course I've read it too, it was the last trial to get the file working via REPLACERS TAB.

ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa is correctly listed in Oblivion.ini:


I at the moment rebuild the headhuman_n.dds via DXTbmp: no effect.
Just installed the brand- new Wrye Bash 2.78: no effect.

I'm nearly out of idea!
First try putting ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa as the first .bsa in the ini. No idea if it will do anything but it's worth a try...

If that still doesn't work, desactivate Wrye Bash's bsa redirection and try to use OBMM's one(but they should be exactly the same).
Since you said it worked perfectly with OBMM...

edit:
I would like to point out that I've got tons of normal maps redirected through Wrye's bsa redirection, including body textures and there has never been a problem...

Thx for your help. I asked Wrye directly via TESnexus (hope he will answer).