» Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:34 am 
I'm usually a lurker around here, but I thought I'd share something kinda useful (for OCD-type people like me) that I've made.
You know how it is with the gazillion texture packs out there.
I usually find one pack which is so detailed but too different from the game's original style, another pack that's true to the original style but not detailed enough et cetra.. 
And then I end up opening the textures one by one and combining different things from different packs, and hell, every once in a while sticking to the vanilla texture of something or another.
Doing this manually got tiring so I put together a tool that sort of automates the process. More info in the (amateur-ish) readme below.
Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19337
Screenie:
Spoiler
[img]http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/19337-1-1340563209.jpg[/img]
[img]http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/19337-1-1340563209.jpg[/img]
Readme:
Spoiler
Name: TES Texture Pack Merging Utility
Version: 0.1
Date: 6/24/2012
Category: Utilities
Author(s): iPrimE
Source:
Description
===========
A utility designed to aid users in merging files from different texture replacement mods with previews and automatic copying of normal-maps, glow-maps, etc.
Details
=======
- This utility finds the duplicate textures in up to 3 folders (the first one being the reference/vanilla folder). The duplicate textures can then be viewed side-by-side with file size and dimensions info.
- You can then choose which texture to copy to the finalized directory (a "textures" folder will be created in the utility's path). You can also choose to only see the color-map and ignore the normal-map, glow-map and other variations of the texture. In that case, when a texture is chosen, the accompanying normal-map etc. will be copied along with it automatically.
- You can go back and the choice can be changed again. The current choice is indicated by green highlighted text under the preview.
- You will see the name of the current texture, the total size of the textures chosen so far, their vanilla size, and the percentage difference in the status bar.
- There are 3 view modes: Zoom to Fit, Original Size (1:1), and Stretch. In stretch mode, all the textures will be stretched to the size of the biggest texture for an apples-to-apples comparison. In this mode, you can also drag any of the textures around and the other two will follow to help comparison.
- The option View -> "Ignore Alpha" is enabled by default because some textures use the alpha channel for various things. This can cause the texture to look weird or even invisible and more difficult to compare.
Installation and Usage
======================
1. Extract the files in the archive to any folder.
2. Download and Install the .NET Framework v4 if you don't have it installed.
3. Run TexPackMerge.exe
4. Go to File -> Open
5. Select the original "textures" folder. It has to be extracted. BSAs aren't supported yet. This folder will be used as a reference. Only textures which have duplicate names with this folder are considered.
6. Select the other two "textures" folders.
8. Changing the "Auto normal-maps" option will reset the duplicates list but not remove files that have already been copied.
8. Happy merging
Uninstall
=========
Delete the files you extracted from this archive.
Known Issues, Bugs and Future Plans
=============================
- Add a way to specify 2 folders instead of 3 and disable the third viewer for smaller screens/resolutions.
- Add the ability to read the textures from a BSA archive.
History
=======
0.1, 2012/6/24 - Initial release.
Contact
=======
You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'iPrimE'
You can send me an email here: dallen125@hotmail.com
Credits
=======
This software uses the FreeImage open source image library. See http://freeimage.sourceforge.net for details.
FreeImage is used under the GNU GPL, version 3.
Thanks to the great devs at the FreeImage project for the FreeImage library used in this application.
Thanks to Bethesda for creating The Elder Scrolls series.
Thanks to TESNexus.com for the a one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.
Thanks to God for creating us all.
Tools Used
==========
Readme Generator - http://hammondslegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp
SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/
Licensing/Legal
===============
This tool is released under the GNU General Public License v3.
The GNU GPL v3 and a quick summary of what it means can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
Name: TES Texture Pack Merging Utility
Version: 0.1
Date: 6/24/2012
Category: Utilities
Author(s): iPrimE
Source:
Description
===========
A utility designed to aid users in merging files from different texture replacement mods with previews and automatic copying of normal-maps, glow-maps, etc.
Details
=======
- This utility finds the duplicate textures in up to 3 folders (the first one being the reference/vanilla folder). The duplicate textures can then be viewed side-by-side with file size and dimensions info.
- You can then choose which texture to copy to the finalized directory (a "textures" folder will be created in the utility's path). You can also choose to only see the color-map and ignore the normal-map, glow-map and other variations of the texture. In that case, when a texture is chosen, the accompanying normal-map etc. will be copied along with it automatically.
- You can go back and the choice can be changed again. The current choice is indicated by green highlighted text under the preview.
- You will see the name of the current texture, the total size of the textures chosen so far, their vanilla size, and the percentage difference in the status bar.
- There are 3 view modes: Zoom to Fit, Original Size (1:1), and Stretch. In stretch mode, all the textures will be stretched to the size of the biggest texture for an apples-to-apples comparison. In this mode, you can also drag any of the textures around and the other two will follow to help comparison.
- The option View -> "Ignore Alpha" is enabled by default because some textures use the alpha channel for various things. This can cause the texture to look weird or even invisible and more difficult to compare.
Installation and Usage
======================
1. Extract the files in the archive to any folder.
2. Download and Install the .NET Framework v4 if you don't have it installed.
3. Run TexPackMerge.exe
4. Go to File -> Open
5. Select the original "textures" folder. It has to be extracted. BSAs aren't supported yet. This folder will be used as a reference. Only textures which have duplicate names with this folder are considered.
6. Select the other two "textures" folders.
8. Changing the "Auto normal-maps" option will reset the duplicates list but not remove files that have already been copied.
8. Happy merging
Uninstall
=========
Delete the files you extracted from this archive.
Known Issues, Bugs and Future Plans
=============================
- Add a way to specify 2 folders instead of 3 and disable the third viewer for smaller screens/resolutions.
- Add the ability to read the textures from a BSA archive.
History
=======
0.1, 2012/6/24 - Initial release.
Contact
=======
You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'iPrimE'
You can send me an email here: dallen125@hotmail.com
Credits
=======
This software uses the FreeImage open source image library. See http://freeimage.sourceforge.net for details.
FreeImage is used under the GNU GPL, version 3.
Thanks to the great devs at the FreeImage project for the FreeImage library used in this application.
Thanks to Bethesda for creating The Elder Scrolls series.
Thanks to TESNexus.com for the a one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.
Thanks to God for creating us all.
Tools Used
==========
Readme Generator - http://hammondslegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp
SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/
Licensing/Legal
===============
This tool is released under the GNU General Public License v3.
The GNU GPL v3 and a quick summary of what it means can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
The grand total development time of this thing is probably no more than 10 hours so constructive feedback, feature requests, and bug reports get a cookie
I'm going to release the source code for this (sometime soon, hopefully), but right now it's a bit too messy. Once I'm less embarrassed about it, I'll put it up here.
