I'm about to pyffie the vanilla meshes with PyFFie 2.1.6. So I unpack the Oblivion - Meshes.BSA, run Pyffie on the sub-folders I want to (I know, better not pyffie certain ones although recent Pyffie versions are very smart looking for files to skip), and repack the pyffied meshes for installation in-game. How is it best to do the repacking part?

1.) Take only the pyffied meshes, make a 7zip out of them and install them with BAIN ?

2.) Take the pyffied meshes, overwrite with them the original (untreated) meshes in the folder where I previously unpacked the original BSA to, then repack the whole folder back into .BSA again. And that .BSA should be compressed or rather uncompressed? I see that OBMM can do it either way. My feeling is uncompressed is better/faster later on.

But what method is actually the better one? I'm looking for performance in-game, no HD space saving considerations. My feeling is both are equally good. But maybe I'm missing something? My rig CPU is a pretty fast dual core E8400 for that matter. Much appreciate your insights!

The best way to PyFFI is this (thanks to Tomlong and TES4POSItive for these instructions):

0: Back up the original Meshes BSA, and never lose it.

1. Extract the contents of the Meshes BSA to the directory Program Files/PyFFI/utilities/toaster/in

2. Remove the Trees and DistantLOD folders, leaving only the meshes folder in the in folder. Trees will be returned to the BSA later, but if you are using TES4LODGen, you can simply delete the DistantLOD folder.

3. Inside the meshes folder, remove the Characters and Creatures folders, optimizing these meshes can cause problems and can even decrease performance.

4. Right-click oblivion_optimize.INI and select Run PyFFI, go get some lunch while the spells are cast.

5. When done, all the optimized meshes will be placed in the out folder. You might want to consider leaving the unoptimized meshes inside the in folder so that if you find a bad PyFFI'd mesh, you can revert to vanilla and not simply ditch the whole thing.

6. Prepare for repacking, move the Characters and Creatures folders back inside the meshes folder and move Trees into the out folder (if no TES4LODGen, once more with DistantLOD).

7. OBMM can repack the BSA for you, open the BSA creator, select add folder, navigate to the PyFFI directory and add the out folder (NOT the individual folders inside, OBMM packs the CONTENTS of the folders, not the folders themselves), select your compression level (preferably none) and create the BSA. Name it exactly the same as the vanilla BSA.

All done.

Thanks for the exhaustive instruction, Thomas :thumbsup:

Thanks, Thomas!

Not to be a pain (and sorry for asking for hand-holding, but pyffi is pretty complex at first glance) - I've seen a bunch of places / versions to download pyffi. Can you link to the most up-to-date and user friendly version? Preferably one setup for oblivion and already with the Program Files/PyFFI/utilities/toaster/in

Thanks again!

1. Grab the http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyffi/files/,
2. Install it with default options (it's an .exe so it's easy and automated).
3. right-click the unpacked meshes folder and select "optimize with pyffi"
4. once finished just repack the folder in an uncompressed BSA named as the original.
5. Reset BSA Date Timestamp with OBMM if original BSA was Vanilla's

Thanks to Amorilia for such an useful and user-friendly tool

Edit: Added 5. as Psymon rightly reminded

OK, so Pyffie ran and did its tricks. From about 7700 files in the In folder, about 7500 got treated and went into the Out folder. About 200 files were not treated (skipped automatically). Now in order for the repacked BSA to be complete, shouldn't one move the 7500 treated files back into the In folder and overwrite when asked? Then add the 3 (or 4) folders like you say in 6.) and THEN do the repacking?

As I understand if repacking is done with only the files in the Out folder (plus the manually re-added folders), the new BSA would be missing the 200 original files that were not treated, no? Thanks for a brief clarification.

If you copy back over the PyFFI'd meshes to where you extracted them (or even backed them up) then they will only copy over what was changed leaving the rest unchanged.

You can then re-BSA and I'd recommend no compression for the meshes.

Then redate the BSA either by putting it in and running OBMM BSA redate option or use a third party program to do that ... I use http://no-nonsense-software.com/freeware/.

All these questions have been asked numerous times in the official http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1123756-inforelz-pyffi-python-file-format-interface/.

Bleargh... missed that. Here's an extra step:

My recommendation is move the out folder elsewhere, copy the in folder and rename IT out, then move the original out folder back in to merge and overwrite.

Is this still a problem? The most recent pyffi threads say that it's safe to pyffi any and every mesh (save for the ones in the .ini's skip-list) I can say that there's a graphical glitch with pyffied rat meshes though they seem to have some kind of "seam" running through their underbelly. Just visual though, no stutters or anything.

The only problem I had with pyffing meshes was that clumped light sources (lots of candles at a single place like some shrine, bruma mages guild attack etc) seem to make the game stutter Vanilla meshes stutter, yes, but the pyffi-ed stuff stutters more.

1. It's considered safe to process any meshes regardless of folder, as the few files Amorilia knows as problematic for Pyffi get skipped automatically.

2. Kindly report those issues on the Pyffi thread, and/or even better, on the http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=199269&atid=968813 including copy of the faulty meshes.

Thanks Psymon and Thomas for the additional instructions. I did as you said, renamed and redated the BSA to May 3, 2006 17:02:18 which is the timestamp of the file as provided on the GOTY DVD. All went well, now go about pyffi-ing the SI and KotN meshes.

Amorilia said in the official Pyffi thread that it is not a problem. This was also my recollection when I was more into Pyffi up until last spring. OK, so I pyffied the creatures and character meshes as well, employing the default skip list that is included with Pyffi. Out of the 2426 files, Pyffi actually treated only 219 files. So the pyffi process goes about it very diligently it seems, and I would think that Thomas cautiousness
is probably unwarranted. Anyway I'll give it a try. If there are problems, reverting these to vanilla is easy.

But I have no clue which meshes are involved in light sourcing. Also, I got a cloth mesh problem with 2.1.6 with an item called "White Monk Robe" and I have no idea what mesh it's using.

EDIT: Fixed the robe problem using Wrye Bash's "vanilla Beast Skeleton tweak" ... And will use FormID finder to get any light source meshes for looking into