Question How to remove a scene from an existing var?

[JohnTW]

My scene browser is clogged with scenes that do nothing but show a pair of shoes, or a haircut. I know I can hide these, but I'd like to simply remove them from the .var files so that they're not being loaded.

I'm not a creator, and while I'm not clueless, I'm also not swimming in design tech know-how. Is there an easy way to simply unpack, delete, and repack a var file?

 

[Origin69]

You can unpack and repack with the package manager in game. Also a var is basically a zip file with a different name, so you can do it with winrar or 7zip etc. Just be mindful that aspects are also named in the meta.json content list so you may get content errors when using things from the var (You can also edit this with notepad+, and delete the reference). The saves themselves are just a json text file and a 512x512 jpg image, so deleting them won't free up much space. It's probably easier to hide them.

 

[JohnTW]

So just using 7zip, unpacking them, repacking them (in .zip format?) and changing the extension will work?

And yeah, I know I can hide them, but I use the 'hide' function more as an organizational tool.

 

[MacGruber]

So just using 7zip, unpacking them, repacking them (in .zip format?) and changing the extension will work?

And yeah, I know I can hide them, but I use the 'hide' function more as an organizational tool.

It does work, but I would recommend the build-in package manager inside VaM.

 

[Origin69]

So just using 7zip, unpacking them, repacking them (in .zip format?) and changing the extension will work?

And yeah, I know I can hide them, but I use the 'hide' function more as an organizational tool.

You can use 7zip, but you will have to rename them from .zip to .var afterwards. When I need to check something quickly when I don't have Vam running, I do this with a copy of the package in a separate folder, so I don't accidentally extract directly in the addons folder. It's probably best practice to go through the package manager though. For morphs and clothing you can go directly to that addon in the package manager by clicking the little icon that looks like a cube next to it.

 

[RandomVAMUser]

Can you do it? -yes
Is it recommended? -no

When you "add to zip" and just change extension, it still won't be same as creating via package builder.
Store and compression options won't be the same as original. Same if you manually edit something inside package (example json).
If you gonna do it, use create archive/add to archive, don't use "add to example.zip" (with default settings).

Here are example settings for 7zip (add to archive) to get it as close as possible to original package (even then filesize won't be the same).

 

[JohnTW]

Thanks. I'll learn the 'right' way - I was just curious if the easy way and the right way were the same (which would have sped things up considerably.)