Question Any idea why I get this error? "Plugin does not exist"

[qman]

Hi,

I keep getting errors for items (plugins, textures etc.) that are not exist although they ARE exist.
Any idea how to fix this?

For example:
"!> Plugin file ClockwiseSilver.SilverCircler.3:/Custom/Scripts/ClockwiseSilver/SilverCircler.cs does not exist"

Thanks

 

[WrongTamago]

It's looking for it in the ClockwiseSilver.SilverCircler.3.var file. You're showing that it's been extracted to your VAM folder. If you extract VARs, then you have to fix all the references to it. It's not really a great idea, because it's a lot of work. Just take the VAR file and leave it in AddonPackages. No need to extract.

 

[MacGruber]

Just in case you downloaded the package from Patreon, some browsers weirdly rename VAR files to ZIP, causing confusion with users.
Check this: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/

 

[qman]

Just in case you downloaded the package from Patreon, some browsers weirdly rename VAR files to ZIP, causing confusion with users.
Check this: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/

WOW! Thank you for that article! I can't believe I extracted all the VAR's and placed the files manually

 

[qman]

Just in case you downloaded the package from Patreon, some browsers weirdly rename VAR files to ZIP, causing confusion with users.
Check this: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/

Is there a similar way to open VAC files?

 

[MacGruber]

VAC files probably have the same issue, you might have to rename them the same way.

 

[qman]

VAC files probably have the same issue, you might have to rename them the same way.

I added it to the addon folder and I can't see the files. Also tried to change the extension to var... nothing

 

[MacGruber]

Well, if its a VAC....it needs to be renamed to .vac. These VAC packages are old/legancy and nobody should be using them anymore. However, if you come across them, you need to place them somewhere in Saves/scene/...

 

[WrongTamago]

I added it to the addon folder and I can't see the files. Also tried to change the extension to var... nothing

As MacGruber said, you put them into Saves/scene/. You open the VAC in the game as if it's a scene. The game will then fully extract it. The VAC is no longer needed after that, but you have to delete it manually. You could run the VAC again, but there's no need, because the extracted files are there.

Personally, I never let the game extract it. It's just a ZIP file, so I extract it and delete it before launching VaM. If it's called MyScene.vac, then extract it to a folder called MyScene. Often it comes with a thumbnail (like MyScene.jpg), so I move it into the new folder.

It never extracts anything outside of the Saves/scene/ folder, so sometimes creators would include another ZIP that had assets or clothes that you extract into Custom.

You can probably see why this method is no longer used.

 

[TToby]

Just in case somebody does not know this, but VAR are essentially ZIP packages, too (but don't have to be extracted, because VaM does this internally and temporally... blabla). I have linked the .var file ending in Windows with my Zip tool, and now, if i doubleclick on the var file, it automatically shows up in my ZIP tool and can be searched or altered (mostly to reduce the sometimes ridiculous size of the texture images for me). But this is only a nice-to-know from my side and not related to this posting... so forget it if you want ;-)

 

[MacGruber]

it automatically shows up in my ZIP tool and can be searched or altered (mostly to reduce the sometimes ridiculous size of the texture images for me)

I would STRONGLY advise against modifiying VAR packages like that (reading is fine) unless you know PRECISELY what you are doing. For example your ZIP tool might use different compression settings for example, interfering with quickly extracting individual files at runtime without extracting the whole thing, stuff like that. VaM has a function to unpack the VAR for you and repack it later, use that if you really have to modify a VAR. It even keeps a backup copy.

It goes without saying that modified packages should not be distributed as it would confuse the hell out of everyone trying to hunt down bugs. Please don't waste time of creators by reporting "bugs" to them caused by you "modifying" their carefully created packages.

 

[TToby]

I would STRONGLY advise against modifiying VAR packages like that (reading is fine) unless you know PRECISELY what you are doing. For example your ZIP tool might use different compression settings for example, interfering with quickly extracting individual files at runtime without extracting the whole thing, stuff like that. VaM has a function to unpack the VAR for you and repack it later, use that if you really have to modify a VAR. It even keeps a backup copy.

It goes without saying that modified packages should not be distributed as it would confuse the hell out of everyone trying to hunt down bugs. Please don't waste time of creators by reporting "bugs" to them caused by you "modifying" their carefully created packages.

Hi, thank you for your warning words. Yes, I do know what I do, and no, I (almost) never had any issues with this procedure. But I am completely with you, that unexperienced user should not tinker around with stuff and maybe even report it as a bug. In a perfect world I would not have to edit those files. It is no fun to go through all of those textures and do all of those very basic size optimazions. When I was a game designer and graphic artist a century ago (so it feels), we strictly had to do this stuff to keep our games in size for even a CD or later a DVD. In modern times, disk space is cheap, so nobody seems to care anymore. But I can simply not tolerate having a package on my poor SDD with an already 160 GB big VaM folder (still can't beleve this!), that is twice or much more (!) of the size than it really has to be. Thoug, I don't want to critizise too much, as most of the stuff is great and for free!
Thank you all for your creativity!

It is good that someone says this clearly: Please, my fellow VaM users, don't do advanced stuff at home if you don't know what you do or can't live with the consequences.
Completely no offense!