VaM 1.x Dependencies cleanup

[One-Headlight]

Every year, I do a full VAM cleanup just to squash the endless error codes—and I dread it every time. Not trying to drag anyone, but creators like Wolverine333 (just using him as an example) tend to load up scenes with 50+ dependencies… most of which I barely use. If it’s just a look, I’ll grab the morphs and textures and call it good.


But with scenes? It’s a mess. Tried editing the meta and scene JSONs manually—no dice. Even asked an AI to write a Python cleanup script, and it bombed a few times. So now I either disable the whole thing or straight-up NUKE it.


Am I the only one fighting this dependency apocalypse, or are others quietly suffering too?

 

[SlimerJSpud]

In Package Manager, you can set an option to disable and hide warnings for missing dependencies. I do that for scenes I like, but that have dependencies I see as a waste of space. Then, I open the original scene and save a local copy without those dependencies. I get the errors when I open the scene from the var, but not from the local copy. All the mods and fiddling I do is on the local copy. Periodically, I weed out old scenes that don't interest me anymore, and put them in an OldScenes folder that's outside of the folders Vam looks in. I also have a "Holding Area" folder for vars I think I don't need anymore. If I move a var in there, and get no errors, then it's safe to delete.

 

[atani]

Here's someone on the far side of manual curation who does editing of meta.json files, deletes unwanted content from the VARs, and keeps only the latest version. I find an empty error log a beautiful prize for all the work involved.
It's possible but only for those who are ok with putting in the time and don't have a crazy big collection, mine's under 200 GB for years now.

 

[One-Headlight]

In Package Manager, you can set an option to disable and hide warnings for missing dependencies. I do that for scenes I like, but that have dependencies I see as a waste of space. Then, I open the original scene and save a local copy without those dependencies. I get the errors when I open the scene from the var, but not from the local copy. All the mods and fiddling I do is on the local copy. Periodically, I weed out old scenes that don't interest me anymore, and put them in an OldScenes folder that's outside of the folders Vam looks in. I also have a "Holding Area" folder for vars I think I don't need anymore. If I move a var in there, and get no errors, then it's safe to delete.

I do use QVARO to disable some packages when Im not using it. It helps move VAM along with ease.

 

[One-Headlight]

Here's someone on the far side of manual curation who does editing of meta.json files, deletes unwanted content from the VARs, and keeps only the latest version. I find an empty error log a beautiful prize for all the work involved.
It's possible but only for those who are ok with putting in the time and don't have a crazy big collection, mine's under 200 GB for years now.

How did you manage that? In my experience you can't just edit meta.json alone, you need to edit scene.json as well or am I missing something?

 

[CV42]

Imo it's not worth the effort. As soon as one downloads a new resource and skips unwanted dependencies (which i at least do nearly every time), new errors will arise.

Years back, those errors annoyed me as well. Today i simply view them as part of the application. It's easier to ignore them or hide the warnings than squashing them regularly.

How did you manage that? In my experience you can't just edit meta.json alone, you need to edit scene.json as well or am I missing something?

Yeah. They need to be removed from the scene as well, not just the meta data.

 

[atani]

How did you manage that? In my experience you can't just edit meta.json alone, you need to edit scene.json as well or am I missing something?

Yeah. They need to be removed from the scene as well, not just the meta data.

As I only keep what I want to reuse, and I only have in collection some 20 real scenes in total, it's not a big problem editing those scenes and remove the errors presented. For scenes I'm trying out the first time, I can ignore the errors and if later I want to keep it I edit the scene.

Unfortunately most of the work is that people shove in scenes when sharing looks and what not so those I open, check out the scene (that could have been only a nude appearance preset), remove clothes, save the preset if decided to keep. Whenkeeping, I edit the meta.json to remove all unneeded stuff from the naked look, remove the scene in the VAR and other junk, and done, a clean VAR. I also change the versions in the meta.json to .latest using regex: find .\d+" : replace .latest" :

Naturally, big ass collections or keeping VARs from creators who can't package for shit will make the above a masochistic enterprise. I started a long time ago when there were no tools that exist now, or even the checkbox in Package Manager. Now I don't download much, so it takes very little time to do the editing for new things.

 

[One-Headlight]

Imo it's not worth the effort. As soon as one downloads a new resource and skips unwanted dependencies (which i at least do nearly every time), new errors will arise.

Years back, those errors annoyed me as well. Today i simply view them as part of the application. It's easier to ignore them or hide the warnings than squashing them regularly.

Yeah. They need to be removed from the scene as well, not just the meta data.

I wouldnt mind it be after a year, I noticed loading time into VAM takes forever. With a fresh VAM, everything runs fast. I have to pick and choose which scenes and looks I want. Most looks are easy just take the morphs and texture I want make my own.

 

[One-Headlight]

As I only keep what I want to reuse, and I only have in collection some 20 real scenes in total, it's not a big problem editing those scenes and remove the errors presented. For scenes I'm trying out the first time, I can ignore the errors and if later I want to keep it I edit the scene.

Unfortunately most of the work is that people shove in scenes when sharing looks and what not so those I open, check out the scene (that could have been only a nude appearance preset), remove clothes, save the preset if decided to keep. Whenkeeping, I edit the meta.json to remove all unneeded stuff from the naked look, remove the scene in the VAR and other junk, and done, a clean VAR. I also change the versions in the meta.json to .latest using regex: find .\d+" : replace .latest" :

Naturally, big ass collections or keeping VARs from creators who can't package for shit will make the above a masochistic enterprise. I started a long time ago when there were no tools that exist now, or even the checkbox in Package Manager. Now I don't download much, so it takes very little time to do the editing for new things.

Learned something new, appreciate the insight! But here’s the real headache: when you find a killer scene you’d love to use, but it’s buried under a mountain of plugins and dependencies. Scene.json isn’t just intimidating, it’s a digital labyrinth compared to the polite simplicity of meta.json.


I tried wrangling it with a handful of free JSON viewers, hoping for even a glimmer of editing sanity... nope. Most web-based tools tapped out before the file even loaded, like they saw the string length and noped out of existence.

 

[atani]

There's no reason to try to understand a scene from the JSON, at best you just see some very specific parts for something you already know beforehand what to check.
How to change a scene?

1. Open the scene in VAM
2. Make the changes you want and can
3. Save the scene

If you intended to overwrite this modified scene on the original VAR, then you'd need to make some changes that I could explain if that's the intention. If you want ito package to a new VAR and keep the original too, then that would be easier and no extra steps. If you want to keep it as a locally saved changed scene in /Scenes, then also no more steps and definitely no need to open the JSON in a viewer.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

About the only time I edit a scene json in a text editor is to force the scene to use the latest version of a plugin. I always do that in a local copy, not in the var.