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[LE] big problem with npc appearance


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Hi community, I ran into a problem that I've not foreseen so short before releasing my mod. When I begun this work, I had the texture replacer of the Pretty Face mod installed and when I created my npc faces with ECE, all looked pretty nice, but as I had no experience with modding and I simply forgot that these textures were in the data folder. But the mod was growing.

I discovered it yesterday because I want to make the mod standalone. I used the very good tutorial from here:

http://tes5stuff.blogspot.de/2015/10/ece-character-to-create-npcfollower.html

 

But there was a warning I didn't realized before. It was recommended not to have mods installed that altered the appearance of the npcs before the creating process in ck is done.

 

And here we go. I would like to include these files from Pretty Face into my follower mod, because the appearance depends on it. It is with permission. But I have no idea how to do that, as the files are in the character assets folder under textures. I copied all to my textures mod folder but what have I to do to get them assigned to the npcs in ck?

I copied all headparts and renamed it and assigned textures to them, replacing the files with these from Pretty Face but it doesn't work. NPCs looking now terrible :sad:

 

The tutorial doesn't cover it and also not this very good one from Natilde here on nexus.

I have assigned the invidual hairs and eyes successfully, so I do know how to make custom appearance.

 

Yeah, I'm a noob, I know. Can someone tell me how to assign these textures correctly to a standalone followers mod?

 

Big thanks for anyone who can advise me. I simply do not know wich files at wich place are needed and I watched and read all tutorials about that I could find.

 

Greetings from Tasheni

 

As info: I used default breton, nord and imperial race.

Edited by Tasheni
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Hi! Have a look into these folders!

 

X could be C, D or any other letter, it's the drive you have installed steam. X:\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim\Data\

for meshes

00010DD3.nif ; the name is the formID of your customized follower

meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\yourmod.esp

for textures

00010DD3.dds ; same here, if not exist do THIS

textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\yourmod.esp

do THIS!

1. rename the subfolder "actors" to "actors.0", it looks as follow after rename
meshes\actors.0
textures\actors.0


pretty faces is a no bsa mod, that means if you make a new npc all the loose textures and meshes are used by CK

2. load your mod with CreationKit
make sure you have only Skyrim.esm and Update.esm as masterfiles

3. set your mod as active

4. load your plugin

5. find the npc you have created, use this tutorial: https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Dark_Face_Bug

6. finish CK, BUT do not save your plugin (esp-file)!!

7. rename the new created folders

meshes\actors  -> meshes\actors.1
textures\actors  -> textures\actors.1

8. rename back your old folders

meshes\actors.0  -> meshes\actors
textures\actors.0  -> textures\actors

9. now copy all the files in subfolder "yourmod.esp"

Hint: Do not use any space within the mod name!
for example: "your mod.esp" is a bad name

from:

meshes\actors.1\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\yourmod.esp            textures\actors.1\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\yourmod.esp

to

meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\yourmod.esp              textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\yourmod.esp


10. if all done, load your plugin again with CK
now you should be able to save all the files you need to bsa-archive

 

Hint: Do not include any mesh or texture from pretty face mod into the bsa, hairs should be!

Good luck..

Edited by ReDragon2013
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Hello ReDragon2013,

 

thank you for this tutorial, this is in fact very good to know in the case of accidents. I stored it in my tutorials folder :) But my problem here is not to restore the files - sorry, I'm perhaps not too familiar with the english language to state out complicated things. Before I dared to alter these things I created a full backup of the data folder and that saved me now.

But what I want to achieve is using the textures in my mod because the appearence of the npcs depend on them. Pretty Face comes with no esp and no meshes, just textures that replace all human female textures in game. If I want to share my followers all folks would have to install Pretty Face to see them as I had intended. And everyone who does will alter all human femals and this can't be good. So I tried to apply the textures to my followers directly but that doesn't work.

There are three femalehead textures in this mod and some femalehead_msn.dds files for the different races. I copied them into my followers texture folder: Textures/Actors/Character/Tasheni/Eldrid/Face. I duplicated the default femalbretonhead in ck and changed the ID to _EldridHead. I copied the femalehead.nif out of the Meshes.bsa and attached it with femalehead.tri, femaleheadRaces.tri and femaleheadCharGen.tri to the new headpart.

I opened the femalehead.nif with nifscope and attached the right textures to it. In nifskope all looks right but in ck I have a transparent head with eyes and teath - looks funny :)

 

So I need an idea how to do this. I thought it would work like the custom eyes and hairs that I've attached to my actors. But it doesn't.

I'm confused about which facefiles I need to use: I tried also the femalehead.nif that was under the folder character assets.

 

I have exactly one week left until releasing the beta, afterwards we have Nordlicht event in Bremen and then I have lot of work to do. First update will be in December, if all goes right. If I can't get it right, mod will be released with the dependency of pretty face - that would make me a little bit angry.

 

Thank you for your time. Liebe Grüße, Tasheni

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So I tried this again in an extra esp. Now the way is to do it with a custom race and see if it works. I followed the tutorial on the wiki, duplicated the breton race and attached my headparts through formlist - that all works fine.

The femalehead.nif I used is the exported headfile from ck. I opened it in nifscope and adjusted the texture paths for my character textures. In nifscope all looks fine. But in ck the head has only eyes, brows and mouth. What am I overlooking? I have right now not included any tintmasks - could that be the problem? I don't think so.

In the textureset that I created for the head I used the BlankDetailmap.dds. Is that right?

 

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Edited by Tasheni
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I'm not sure if I understand right.

\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom\skyrim.esm\ 00013255.nif <-- vanilla mesh-file as you should know

I took a HexEditor and found next text infos:

    00013255.NIF....
    NPC Head [Head]....
    NPC Spine2 [Spn2]....
    BSFaceGenNiNodeSkinned....
    MaleMouthHumanoidDefault....
    MaleHeadNord....
    MaleEyesHumanAmber....
    BrowsMaleHumanoid01....
    HairLineMaleNord09....
    HairMaleNord09

and that are the texture entry relations: I have no idea why sometimes the path is missing "textures" in front.

mouth

    textures\actors\character\mouth\MouthHuman.dds
    textures\actors\character\mouth\MouthHuman_N.dds

head

    Actors\Character\Male\MaleHead.dds
    Actors\Character\Male\MaleHead_msn.dds
    Actors\Character\Male\MaleHead_sk.dds
    Actors\Character\Male\MaleHeadDetail_Rough01.dds
    data\Textures\Actors\Character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\Skyrim.esm\00013255.dds
    textures\actors\character\male\MaleHead_S.dds

eyes

    Actors\Character\Eyes\EyeAmber.dds
    textures\actors\character\eyes\EyeBrown_n.dds
    textures\actors\character\eyes\EyeBrown_sk.dds
    textures\cubemaps\EyeCubeMap.dds
    textures\actors\character\eyes\EyeEnvironmentMask_M.dds

brows

    Actors\Character\MaleBrows\MaleBrow_1.dds
    textures\actors\character\malebrows\MaleBrow1_n.dds

hairs 2x

    textures\actors\character\hair\HairLong.dds
    textures\actors\character\hair\HairLong_n.dds

 

 

--- maybe the next is working for you, no warranty !!!

Mache auf jeden Fall eine Sicherheitskopie von Deinem esp-file bevor Du das Folgende probierst !!!

 

As I wrote in preview posting the path for your files is:

 meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\yourmod.esp\ 00013255.nif
 textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\yourmod.esp\ 00013255.dds

for example you want to make unique hairs for this npc:

textures\actors\character\hair\
copy "HairLong.dds" to file "HairLong_00013255.dds" and select this texture within the CK -> It does not work so easy!

Die Textur ist leider nicht direkt anwählbar. Du musst ein Standard-Mesh auswählen und die Standard-Textur im Creation Kit
auf die neue (spezielle) Textur (HairLong_00013255.dds) umschreiben.

Das musst Du für jede BodyPart texture machen, welchen Du geändert haben willst (which shouldn't be vanilla like).

 

Und das Abspeichern nicht vergessen.

Edited by ReDragon2013
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Hallo Du Nachtschwärmer :wink:

 

thank you for your kindness. Quite nice to use a hex editor - I looked at it with nifscope and got the same infos. I duplicated the 00000D62.nif, renamed it to femalehead.nif and put it into my mod folder:

/Meshes/Actors/Character/Tasheni/Eldrid/face

In the folder of Eldrid I put all relevant meshes for the hair, brows and so on. The same folder structure is with textures and I put the textures from Pretty Face mod into them and also from Eyes of Beauty mod.

I attached with nifscope all textures that you have seen in your hex editor to the femalehead.nif. Face looks pretty good. Tintmask point to 00000D62.dds.

 

In ck I duplicated the femaleheadbreton and renamed it to EldridHead. I assigned the femalehead.nif and tri files. I made a texture set with the textures from the Eldrid folder and assigned it to the headpart EldridHead. I did the same with eyes, hairs, hands and body.

I duplicated the breton race and renamed it to TasheniBretonRace. I created a FormList with my created race in it.

In the new race I changed the eyes and brows and the head to the headparts I've created for Eldrid. Eyes, hairs and brows are showing up well but not the head. It's simply missing. I checked the paths ten times and more.

I'm confused and now tired after trying the whole day.

 

I'm back tomorrow, may I send you a PM auf deutsch? :smile: Vielleicht wird es dann einfacher.

 

Gute Nacht. Tasheni

Edited by Tasheni
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So here you have a picture how it looks and it's driving me mad because I can't find a solution:

 

EldridFemaleHeadPart.thumb.png.dd8407de2

 

And in the preview window of the actor there's no head like I described it.

 

If anyone has knowledge about nifs and textures and has an idea how to fix it, I appreciate your help warmthly.

Edited by Tasheni
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I solved it. It's so simple and all the tutorials around don't cover that matter. I was on the completely wrong path.

I simply needed the 00000D62.nif in the Sherda.esp and attach the right textures via nifscope to it. Nothing more. No merging, no copying to a special folder, all is there. Now she looks great again :)

large.EldridWhiterun.jpg.44984f8ba177264

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