Solved How does file loading work in VAM?

[Warning33]

I am new so i am trying figure out what would be the best way to run things. I have not even installed the VAM client yet, but i have been downloading a lot of stuff that i intent to have organized and then have copies on backup and later have it on the cloud storage space as well. And while doing that it left me wondering about how does the VAM.exe load files from the root folder.

So when i am starting VAM does it load everything that it has inside VAM folders from the very start? Or does it skip certain file types and only pulls them if i specifically want them to show up in a scene or a model?

2nd question.

If VAM.exe does load every single file it has inside the game folder from the start. Would i be able to have a seperate folder for clothing/models/scenes/morphs etc... outside VAM that would not be contributing to the actual VAM load times, but i would still be able to see image previews and file names inside that seperate folder while in the game, and then i could select what i want to load to the client? Because from what i understand, you can add files to the game and load them even when the game is already running?

So if i have 300 shirts for example. Could i start client without having any of them loaded and then go to a scene and open that seperate folder and load/unload only that one shirt i want to the game?

 

[murn]

Everything loads. If you want any particular asset/character/scene only when you start vam, then you will have to make sure only what you want is placed in the designated folder then start vam(too much work). The only way you can access new items quickly after downloading with out restarting is if you use the hub inside vam. I think there was a plugin created that would load only the main files and then you can access files you want after but I may have dreamt that most likely?.

 

[atani]

Unless you have several hundreds of GB of content, you won't have to wait long for VaM to load. For example, my 200 GB VaM takes like 30 seconds in a cold start, and if it was double that it's not that bad too.
Loading scenes is a different deal as it's dependent on how the scene is made. Big ones take longer to load than VaM for me, and your content - used in scene or not - becomes a noticeable problem when you start having something like >400 GB of stuff, which would also be for loading VaM.

If you're just beginning with VaM, don't worry on categorizing assets too much. You're probably going to make a mess quickly enough, even if you don't want to, that's normal until you have a good feel for VaM, what you like or not, and so on. Soon enough you're going to redownload VaM because you realized you made a mess and need to start getting rid of things. That's when you'll have more experience and can do some better organization.
Here's the most important tip for you:

• Don't download poorly packaged resources

In general terms, if there's a scene for example that has over 100 dependencies, then it's a shit packaging job (there are exceptions of course) and you'll download a bunch of stuff you don't want or need. A look with 50 dependencies? Fuck that, probably could just be 5 dependencies.

Backing up your stuff is a excellent way to not have to redownload GB of stuff later because you deleted by mistake or your disk failed. I've seen lots of people in Discord crying about losing everything because there was no backup.
However, do you really need Cloud storage for hundreds of GB when local storage is sufficient? I tend to trust more local backups over cloud solutions, and would likely save you a lot of money too.