Question Texture Load Error, Need Serious Help

[Colourless]

I've been doing some organizing of my Addon Packages recently, and what I've noticed is that a lot of the look .vars don't actually have an appearance preset but instead just a scene preset. I've been going from character to character saving them as custom appearances, then extracting the .vars into what they contained (Custom folders and Saves folders). I then move those folders over to the main VAM folder and just let it save over anything its a copy of.

Now, if I kept the original .var in the AddonPackages, the custom appearance presets would load perfectly fine; however, extracting them and still keeping all of their contents in VAM, it now doesn't load anything properly, even if the content its pathed to is still there.

For example, when loading one of my custom presets after extracting the .var then deleting the .var but moving the extracted contents to their proper folders, I get this error spam:

!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Gen Spec.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Face Gloss.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Torso Gloss.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Limbs Gloss.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Gen Gloss.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Face Normal.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Torso Normal.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Limbs Normal.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path Vonic.Dagi-Rath_Sarah.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/Fur/Sarah Fur/Gen Normal.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path oomphy.pinku_succubus.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/FemaleBase/pinku vam skin.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path oomphy.pinku_succubus.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/oomphy/pinku succubus/make up.png is not valid
!> Error during texture load: Path oomphy.pinku_succubus.2:/Custom/Atom/Person/Textures/oomphy/pinku succubus/pinku tattoos.png is not valid

The problem is is that if I go look for myself, ALL of those paths still contain the proper files. They're not gone, its still looking in the right location, and the contents haven't moved, but it says its not valid?

Can someone help me please?

I'm assuming that since the first path is the actual .var itself, I'm assuming its trying to path through that .var that's no longer there, is there any way to change this?

 

[MacGruber]

The VAR package name is part of the path, VARs are a virtual file system. It's searching in your AddonPackages folder.
Do not unpack/change VARs unless you know precisely what you are doing and why.

 

[Colourless]

The VAR package name is part of the path, VARs are a virtual file system. It's searching in your AddonPackages folder.
Do not unpack/change VARs unless you know precisely what you are doing and why.

How would you get rid of character specific scene files but keep the appearance preset? I only want the character's appearance, I don't want the scene itself.

 

[MacGruber]

Method 1: Hiding the package

1. If the appearance preset is inside the VAR package, load it on a character, then store a copy of it locally outside the VAR. (You said this wasn't the case, but just in case you come across a VAR that contains a preset you want to keep)
2. Go to the VaM PackageManager window, select the package. Then disable the "Enabled" checkbox at the top right.
3. Now assets within the VAR won't show up in the various asset browsers, but you can still load your (local) appearance presets.

If you want to revert this, just go back to the PackageManager window, select "Show Disabled Packages", then select and re-enable your VAR.

Note: Dependency issues do not report errors for disabled packages. That may cause trouble if you aren't aware.


Method 2: Local VAR modification

1. Go to the VaM PackageManager window, select the package.
2. Click "Unpack" in the top right.
   • This will unzip the VAR into a Folder with the name of the VAR inside your AddonPackages folder.
   • It also creates a backup copy of the original unmodified VAR, it's located in your AddonPackages folder with extension ".var.orig"
3. Go to that unzipped folder, locate the scene's JSON file as well as it's thumbnail image and delete both.
4. Go back to the VaM PackageManager window. Press "Rescan Packages" (Alternative: Just restart VaM)

If you want to revert this, go back to the PackageManager window, select your package and press "Restore Original". That restores the VAR from the backup copy mentioned above.

Note: There is a "Repack" button. However, be extremely careful when creating content (e.g. a new scene) based on modified VARs, if you might want to share that content at some point in the future with others. If there are multiple variants of the same package floating around, you will create a nightmare for the original creator. Because THEY will have to deal with YOUR potentially broken mess...e.g. another scene that depends on the stuff you deleted/modified! If your modifications are worth sharing, get permission from the original author and share under a new VAR with your creator name (e.g. SomeDude.CoolPackage.1.var becomes Colourless.CoolPackage.1.var). The Hub will prevent upload under the same name anyway. License considerations should also be taken into account.

 

[Colourless]

Will disabled assets bloat the load times of scenes and boot up? The main reason why I've been doing this was so that I could only have scenes that had actual animations be in the scenes category, and all the scenes that were only for models no longer be scenes and instead be in the appearance presets, not have scenes and appearances merged for every look. I was tired of having to wait 1-2 minutes every time I want to load a scene.

 

[MacGruber]

Will disabled assets bloat the load times of scenes and boot up?

You need the assets anyway. In which form you have them doesn't matter. Main concern for performance is having too many morphs, as even unused moprhs have performance cost, reducing FPS, not just load times. (See Benchmark thread...) Whether or not you delete scenes only helps keeping order in your scene browser.

 

[Colourless]

How would I go about efficiently removing excess morphs and duplicate clothing assets without ruining the appearances I'm trying to load?

 

[MacGruber]

Tell creators to package their stuff properly? E.g. have them make a package for the actual appearance and a separate package for a fancy demo scene, which references the first. And of course actually understand the VAR systerm and not duplicate assets in the first place. I could be actually quite simple, but handling dependencies properly is apparently too complicated for many. (e.g. some creators seem to actually think that duplicating assets in their VAR solves the dependency madness...because their VAR doesn't have dependencies...but this is actually what creates the whole problem)

 

[Colourless]

I don't know if this is useful for anyone, but it may be useful for you MacGruber. I used the JayJayWon Browser assist delete function for multiple files specifically for the scenes that I have created appearance presets for, and I can load the appearance presets error free despite the scene itself no longer existing.

I've backed up the .var files that I had deleted in another drive just in case of a worst case scenario, but it seems to be working so far. It's tedious, but it seems to work. I'm going to reboot VAM and see if the appearance load works properly with the scene being deleted or if this is just a weird "phantom" load where the assets are only loaded because I haven't rebooted.

EDIT: I can confirm that JayJayWon's delete option specifically for scenes can cut down on the amount of scenes that are loaded AND allows for the appearance preset to load properly. For example, I had 57 scenes downloaded from MaximumShihouin, made an appearance preset for each character, and then I multi-selected the scenes and deleted them all. I then rebooted VAM, it loaded faster, opened up a custom black scene and loaded in one of the appearance presets without the scene existing, and the appearance loaded without error and looks exactly how I saved it.

I think I just found the one solution to the loading issue and at the same time managing .var bloat.

I will continue testing this. If anyone is reading this, BACK UP YOUR .VARS IN A FOLDER OUTSIDE OF VAM. I copied mine to another drive entirely, but even with them not existing within VAM itself, the appearances are still able to load everything it needs.