Creation Kit NPC Facial Textures Help

[Asclepius]

Hello all, My first post and it's a solution at that! Not a question lol.

 

Please excuse me if this is poorly written or unclear. I did just drink a few glasses of jonny walker but I'm going to try anyways. I'm sure there is an easier way to do this or a way to skip steps but this is how I did it and how it fixed the issue. Alright, here we go.

 

Note: this fixes the Face tint at the cost of a small neck seam issue.

 

What you'll need:

Skyrim Creation kit ("CK")

Skyrim NPC Editor (I used V 0.75.1)

Some way to open the .bsa files

 

I wanted to use a face I made in game to replace a face in a mod. If you are using a face from someones saved file or mod just use the same steps here. I saved the face in game and used the "console>SPF "Character name" to extract the .npc and placed it into the mod using the CK. Well the Face Tint Layers were not displaying right in game like you all have found. Heres the fix broken down barney style (for those of you that are doing this for the first time like I was).

 

1. Start CK with just the master files. Select a premade npc that is the same race as the face you made (or change one to that race). I used the RedguardFemalePreset01 because I made a redguard. Click the "Character Gen Parts" tab and the "Import" button. Import the .npc file you just made by the spf console command in game. Change the ID to whatever ie "customRedguard" and save as .esp.

 

2. (The scotch is hitting me now) In the CK load the mod (active file) with/or master file you are changing the face of. Find the character actor you are changing. On that character go to "Character Gen Parts" tab and import the .npc file you made from the spf console command in game. Now with the character actor file selected in the Object Window press Ctrl and F4 to create the FaceGenData. Save and exit.

 

3. Open the .esp from step 1 in Skyrim NPC Editor (load from file>"yourfile.esp"). You should see your character's face WITH OUT any mods applied. Ugly right? yah don't worry, when you start the game up your mods will apply. This is where you tweak the makeup colors in the Apperances>Makeups tabs (I had to tweak here, black here appears darker in game than in the Char creation in game). Do not edit the character's face here or you'll mess it up, we are just fixing the textures remember. When you're done editing check the "Save to BSA" box if it isn't already and hit the "Create Mod" button. Save this .esp file over the .esp you made in step 1 in the data folder. It will also create a .bsa file. Exit.

 

4. Find the .bsa file in your data folder from step 3 and open it. You'll have a textures and meshes file path shown. Double click textures and save it over (replace) the .dds file from the FaceGenData the CK made in step 2 ie (data>textures>actors>character>FaceGenData>FaceTint>"yourModsName".esp>"theDDSfile".dds). Exit

 

5. You can now delete the .esp and .bsa files you made in step 3 if you want. I would keep them incase you want to edit the makeup in the future (repeat steps 3 and 4 if you do change the makeup but this time using the .esp made in step 3). Start the game and find the npc you just customized. Now your npc has all it's tinting/makeup! If they still dont try step 4 again with the meshes .nif file included (data>meshes>actors>character>FaceGenData>FaceGeom>"yourModsName".esp>"theNIFfile".nif). When I was using coverwomen I had to replace the meshes file as well but when I switched to my current mod I dont need to. Just fixed the textures.

 

I hope this works for you guys like it did for me. Good luck and happy skyrim modding!

Edited December 30, 2012 by Asclepius

[acecypher]

I've read multiple forum topics about this issue that mention selecting an actor and pressing control and F4. to create the FaceGenData. I have repeatedly tried this but no menu comes up. Can someone please give me a clue?

 

In the object window select "actor">"actor" and find character you want to export (you can use filter too), click on it and press Ctrl+F4

if you go filtering in "All" (bottom) you cant open the pop out menu (you cant export the facegendata)

[Cennick]

In regards to the Tattoos and makeup ending up on the forhead in the creation kit

I believe I have found a workaround that is simple. It worked really well for me.

 

sorry if this seems confusing. been good with figuring things out but a horrible teacher

Don't let the ammount of steps confuse you its really quite simple just trying to make it easy to follow i guess.

 

1. create your NPC through either the Showracemenucommand or via coc photobooth mod (whichever you prefer

2. When finished export using the SPF command. Exit skyrim to revert changes unless you wish you character to stay that way.

3. Disable all mods that Edit facial Textures. (Such as, Tattoos, Bella's better Females, Coverwomen)

4. Open creation kit, and either edit the NPC you wish to edit or mod, or completely new character, and begin customizing them as usual.

Under the Character Gen Parts Click the tab in the upper right hand side that says Import and choose the .npc file you just made from skyrim

(It will look strange and not right mostly because you just disabled all of the mods that made it pretty so don't get stressed)

5. After you finished editing the character's Stats, AI, inventory(all that good stuff) Save the File.

6. to be safe close Creation Kit and open it your character as the active file. Again just to be safe open your character to see if its all there then save it.

click on your actor in the object window and press CTRL + F4. Click OK and exit the Creation Kit.

7. Go test it in game to make sure all the textures are right.(No pale or dark faces, and all of the features are correct for example) once verified

Re enable all of the mods you disabled in step 3 and start Skyrim back up. You character should have all correct textures.

 

I hope this helps. Like I said it worked out for me pretty well.

[mrdi666]

Hey everyone. I have 1 problem with this method for custom faces.

I get CTD every time i try to change the sex of my character (i am playing as male and want to create a female face).

 

Here is what i am trying to do. I installed a mod (players castle) with a lot of male guards. I wanted to change them to females. I did that in the CK and edited their faces there, put some Apachi Hair and everything went good. At first i had a grey face textures on the edited NPCs but when i set the interpolation to 0 everything turned back to normal. The thing i am missing here is the makeup. The editor in the CK doesn't work at all, on the contrary. When i put some makeup on the eyes and lips there is no makeup in game just some red lines appearing on the forehead of the NPC. I tried to open the edited ESP in the NPC Editor but it gives me an error and do not load the faces. So my question is is there another way to get the makeup working without showracemenu cos as i said i get a CTD when changing the sex.

 

Please tell me what to do to make it work. Thank you in advance.

[MongoMonk]

Hello. I'm wondering are there any news concerning the issue? Especially if there is way to solve the color mismatch problem without exporting face gen date?

I made small skyproc patcher which edits the skin of all npcs. Exporting the face gen data for every npc is out of question. So maybe there is way to solve the problem by editing the tint layers or something similar. Does anybody know?

[Goliatron]

It doesn't look like a reasonable workaround has been found for the 'All Makeup on Forehead' problem... I am struggling with it now!! I used to be able to edit NPCs on the CK, but they ALL show makeup on the forehead now. All versions current. HELP?? What changed??

[jet4571]

Augh old thread pops back up. I believe what causes it is the use of face texture mods like Bellas causes the upper eye socket to be a big blob on the forehead. Cennick said the same thing so its probably correct. One issue with cennick's workaround is the texture mods cannot be disabled and enabled so easily if you dont use a mod manager.

 

NMM users can easily disable a texture mod via NMM I assume, i dont really know since I dont use mod managers, but for manual install its easy. just unpack the mod into a new directory then cut and paste from there to the data directory. once paste is complete then undo it via windows and done texture mod uninstalled.

[Andyross1962]

OK so this still has to be doen?

How about an NPC created frrom one of the 'preset' Actors like the Nord Male Prisoner named ones? they shouldn't need it doing should they?

Otherwise do I need to convert to an ESM to get the ctrl-F4 thing to work?

 

I have read through the thread but I am none the wiser.

[rhowington]

Here is how to fix the read forehead problem you all seems to be having a problem with. Excerpted from this tutorial.

Open CK, go to CharacterGen and do the following:

Select FemaleUpperEyeSocket.dds Or MaleUpperEyeSocket.dds.

Click full or head preview at bottom so you can see what it does and zoom into your face.

Set Interpolation value to 0 and Click the preview again so u can see the change :smile:

click ok And the highlight the character again and press Ctrl + F4 click ok.

Thanks to Amberleaf779

[Dimness]

Yes, it's almost March 2014, and I'm still playing this game. I just got the red forehead problem, and I couldn't get any of the fixes to work. I did the drastic thing and deleted everything and did a clean install of the game and all of my mods. Will let you know if that works.