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Asset Links

An AssetLink is a strongly typed object wrapping what is normally a string subpath pointing to an asset.

For example, a Skyrim Weapon's Model has a File member, which is the MODL subrecord, which contains a string relative to the Data/Meshes folder. Rather than exposing this as a string, Mutagen exposes this as an AssetLink<SkyrimModelAssetType>.

Enhanced FilePath

If you're just after the path, you can still get it via an AssetLink's RawPath member. But the AssetLink now comes with a bunch of additional features and convenience

Members

RawPath

RawPath is the string that is present on disk in the record itself as it appears. This is also the field that you can set when you want to modify an AssetLink to point to a different path.

AssetLinks are implicitly convertible to/from string, which uses RawPath as the string to return. This is in place to provide some backwards compatibility

DataRelativePath

DataRelativePath is a get only member that does some checking/trimming of RawPath to try to standardize it to be relative to a game's Data folder.

It will trim a prefixed "Data" folder in the path, while also ensuring the appropriate asset subfolder is present. Some examples:

RawPath DataRelativePath
textures/some/subpath.nif textures/some/subpath.nif
data/textures/some/subpath.nif textures/some/subpath.nif
some/subpath.nif textures/some/subpath.nif

In all examples, the DataRelativePath remains the same, as that is what it's attempting to do: keep it standardized to be relative the Data folder, no matter the RawPath's contents.

AssetType Generic

An AssetLink's generic type is the type of asset it relates to.

For example, a Skyrim Model path will be of type AssetLink<SkyrimModelAssetType>, where SkyrimModelAssetType is a meta class containing information about Skyrim Model assets.

AssetType

Asset Type

AssetTypes are constant meta objects that contain the information

  • BaseFolder, what subfolder underneath /Data/ these assests are expected to live
  • FileExtensions, what expected file extensions these types of meta files will have

Asset Enumeration

Similar to FormLinks, a mod can enumerate AssetLinks of a desired type. The details are slightly different, though.

Typical Usage

IStarfieldModGetter mod = ...;
ILinkCache linkCache = ...;
var assetLinkCache = linkCache.CreateImmutableAssetLinkCache();

foreach (var asset in mod.EnumerateAllAssetLinks<StarfieldModelAssetType>(assetLinkCache))
{
    // Loops each asset
}

IStarfieldModGetter mod = ...;
ILinkCache linkCache = ...;
var assetLinkCache = linkCache.CreateImmutableAssetLinkCache();

foreach (var asset in mod.EnumerateAllAssetLinks(assetLinkCache))
{
    // Loops each asset
}

AssetLinkQuery

This is a flag enum with three options, letting you control what type of Assets you want to enumerate:

  • Listed. Assets explicitly listed in the records:

    • Skyrim Model Path

  • Inferred. Assets that can be inferred by fields that exist on the record

    • Armor Addon World Model _0 _1 suffix assets
    • Book text src links pointing to textures

  • Resolved. Assets that can be inferred by looking at other records, and require FormLink lookups on a Link Cache.

    • Dialog Topic's Voice Type paths

By combining flags, you can control what Asset categories you are interested in. There are also convenience methods like EnumerateListedAssetLinks that handle the flags for you.

AssetLinkCache

Resolved asset enumerations require an IAssetLinkCache. This is due to their complex nature requiring a lot of work to locate the same data repeatedly, a cache object helps speed up the internal logic. Some AssetLink enumeration calls will not require AssetLinkCaches if you are not querying for Resolved assets

Reuse Cache

It is best to reuse the same Asset Link Cache for multiple queries, and recreate only if the wrapped LinkCache is invalidated.

Construction

An AssetLinkCache is a cache wrapper around LinkCache, to provide specific functionality for asset lookup.

ILinkCache linkCache = ...;
var assetLinkCache = linkCache.CreateImmutableAssetLinkCache();