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How to permanently fix Grey Face? What worked for you?


Seaweedqueen

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I have a problem with grey face in my game with a few npc. So far about 9 that I have found. They are major characters I interact with a lot so I don't like using setnpcweight 35/50 as it resets it the second I leave the room and come back. It also doesn't work well on dark elfs, the skintone is off when using that command. I have not been able to determine a mod responsible for it (I have a lot installed but I tried not to overdo it when it came to enhancing the characters). Their ID numbers are all very different and the corresponding mods don't overlap. I am a bit worried using creation kit for fixing it as I read a few people completely broke their game doing that. Did anyone fixed it successfully and could tell me how? I have never used the Creation kit before, I downloaded it though in case this is the only way.

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If I have black face bugs, it's because of an Oldrim Skyrim port usually.. in which case I reconfigure new ones in the CK and build new archives of mods. Luckily, I haven't had to do this very often, as mod creators tend to cover that already.

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If I have black face bugs, it's because of an Oldrim Skyrim port usually.. in which case I reconfigure new ones in the CK and build new archives of mods. Luckily, I haven't had to do this very often, as mod creators tend to cover that already.

I tried to avoid any Oldrim ports that weren't done properly. I followed a modding guide and he usually always pointed out if a file wasn't converted properly and I just didn't use them then. I wouldn't know how to figure out if any of my mods wasn't converted :/

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There are tons of reasons for black faces.

The basic: Texture has 4 different files: diffuse (the actual texture), normal map, spec map, and sk (don't even know the full name). If you are missing texture, the whole thing will turn purple. But if you are missing the other 3, you may get black face. This is not a glitch as glitches would suggest something are not working as intended. But in this case, the game is likely working fine, but you somehow are not giving it all the needed files (or it cannot find the expected files at the given path).

The reality:
- You are really missing a file. Go look in your texture mods to make sure all the files are there.
- The mod author made typo of file name or path. You need to input correct path inside .esp (via SSEEdit or CK) or maybe just change the file name.
- The mod author saved the texture files in a format the game does not quite understand.
- Some other mods redirect your file path ... need to find the offending mod, and read comments to find out if there is a workaround.
- And this is new to me: Vanilla hair replacer.

Yep, you think Vanilla hair, all you need is to give them new mesh and textures. But it's not simple as you would expect. Any non-vanilla NPCs without dedicated textures may experience black face. Some mods just create generic NPCs, like Flower Girls, Carriage Overhaul, made new characters with existing game resources .... will conflict with Vanilla hair replacer and cause black face. 2 workaround for this:
- Either follow instruction on Vanilla hair mod, alter every single new .esp that creates patch/support for the new hair styles.
- Or do not use hair replacers. You can have add-on, just not replace. You can use any hair you like, but NPC will be stuck with Vanilla hair.

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There are tons of reasons for black faces.

 

The basic: Texture has 4 different files: diffuse (the actual texture), normal map, spec map, and sk (don't even know the full name). If you are missing texture, the whole thing will turn purple. But if you are missing the other 3, you may get black face. This is not a glitch as glitches would suggest something are not working as intended. But in this case, the game is likely working fine, but you somehow are not giving it all the needed files (or it cannot find the expected files at the given path).

 

The reality:

- You are really missing a file. Go look in your texture mods to make sure all the files are there.

- The mod author made typo of file name or path. You need to input correct path inside .esp (via SSEEdit or CK) or maybe just change the file name.

- The mod author saved the texture files in a format the game does not quite understand.

- Some other mods redirect your file path ... need to find the offending mod, and read comments to find out if there is a workaround.

- And this is new to me: Vanilla hair replacer.

 

Yep, you think Vanilla hair, all you need is to give them new mesh and textures. But it's not simple as you would expect. Any non-vanilla NPCs without dedicated textures may experience black face. Some mods just create generic NPCs, like Flower Girls, Carriage Overhaul, made new characters with existing game resources .... will conflict with Vanilla hair replacer and cause black face. 2 workaround for this:

- Either follow instruction on Vanilla hair mod, alter every single new .esp that creates patch/support for the new hair styles.

- Or do not use hair replacers. You can have add-on, just not replace. You can use any hair you like, but NPC will be stuck with Vanilla hair.

How would I know all my files are there?

 

I am using a hair replacement and a mod, Diversity, that overhauls all game npcs giving them better Apachiis hair. I would prefer to keep using it as it makes a huge difference in the game. It is all basegame npcs so far that have the grey face bug. Would it still be the hair replacement that affects 95% of all npcs in my game even though only a handful are experiencing the grey face?

Edited by Seaweedqueen
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How would I know all my files are there?

 

I am using a hair replacement and a mod, Diversity, that overhauls all game npcs giving them better Apachiis hair. I would prefer to keep using it as it makes a huge difference in the game. It is all basegame npcs so far that have the grey face bug. Would it still be the hair replacement that affects 95% of all npcs in my game even though only a handful are experiencing the grey face?

 

Go to your texture file folders, check both male and female to see if you have malehead.dds (and femalehead.dds) and the other 3 have suffix like _msn _s _sk . My spelling for the files is not exact. There is also a vampire file too. I think a normal map (_msn).

 

Which hair replacement mod?

 

Diversity may be fine. It looks like it modifies directly to each and every NPC instead of modifying default hairs (there is a difference). Default hairs are the hairs Vanilla give you when you make your character. This will cause black face to all NPCs added by mods.

 

 

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There are tons of reasons for black faces.

 

The basic: Texture has 4 different files: diffuse (the actual texture), normal map, spec map, and sk (don't even know the full name). If you are missing texture, the whole thing will turn purple. But if you are missing the other 3, you may get black face. This is not a glitch as glitches would suggest something are not working as intended. But in this case, the game is likely working fine, but you somehow are not giving it all the needed files (or it cannot find the expected files at the given path).

 

The reality:

- You are really missing a file. Go look in your texture mods to make sure all the files are there.

- The mod author made typo of file name or path. You need to input correct path inside .esp (via SSEEdit or CK) or maybe just change the file name.

- The mod author saved the texture files in a format the game does not quite understand.

- Some other mods redirect your file path ... need to find the offending mod, and read comments to find out if there is a workaround.

- And this is new to me: Vanilla hair replacer.

 

Yep, you think Vanilla hair, all you need is to give them new mesh and textures. But it's not simple as you would expect. Any non-vanilla NPCs without dedicated textures may experience black face. Some mods just create generic NPCs, like Flower Girls, Carriage Overhaul, made new characters with existing game resources .... will conflict with Vanilla hair replacer and cause black face. 2 workaround for this:

- Either follow instruction on Vanilla hair mod, alter every single new .esp that creates patch/support for the new hair styles.

- Or do not use hair replacers. You can have add-on, just not replace. You can use any hair you like, but NPC will be stuck with Vanilla hair.

 

This is incorrect. Black faces don't necessarily mean something is missing. That is usually not the cause from my experience, and I've had plenty of black faces show up at various times, all of which I have fixed. In fact, in SSE, that has never been the cause of the black faces I have seen.

Edited by blitzen
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Hi

 

Gray face in Skyrim LE was usually caused by a mod that has overwritten a FaceGeom nif in a bsa file by adding a loose file. The usual culprits are in the \Skyrim Special Edition\Data\Meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\skyrim.esm folder. To test move or rename the folder & see what happens.

 

The black face bug has been around since Oblivion. If you use TFC in the console and get close you will see polygon shapes. I only get it once or twice a year & it effects some followers. Going through a door fixes it for me. If you get it alot your GPU is overworked.

 

Brown face bug is caused my mods that change the appearance of NPCs. All your face changing mods should be at the end of your load list before the bash patch. If you have a named NPC that still has it, find a face replacer mod for it and put it at the end of your load list. These are the only files that I have to manually move after running Loot.

 

Later

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I thought they are all the same, grey, black, brown .... I say black face because it looks black to me. Thanks for the distinction. I would like to know more about Facegeom as well, what data it contains and what is exactly going on when the face bug happens.

The reason I brought up missing files... It once did happen to me. Vampires got the black/brown face, I first checked texture file and indeed it was missing either a normal or spec map. Copy one from the human texture solved it. Then later I experienced the same thing (but with more NPCs) and learned that replacing default hairstyle caused it. Facegeom was not happy with new mesh replacement for KS Hair.

I always enjoy rather powerful GPU with decent VRAM (I never get the most expensive GPU, but I know GPU categorization and always get the one in the performance segment). So I guess I never had opportunity to experience texture glitch when GPU is overworked or ran out of memory. Not looking forward to that though. Overworked GPU may lead to a lot of weirdness.

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Hi

 

I don't know much about Facegeom either. I do know that FaceGen overwrites are stored in skyrim.esm folder under meshes & textures. The skyrim.esm texture(tint masks) file overwrites can cause the head of an NPC or player to be a slightly different color than the body.

 

When the first version of Bijin Warmaidens came out for Skyrim LE it caused a massive amount of gray face in my game. Since the NPCs inflicted were vanilla I looked at overwrite files. Deleting the file fixed the issue but I had to replace all the textures used by the mod author & replace them with ones I used on my character. Later versions of the mod fixed the issue. My SE version was issue free as long as it is close to the bottom of the load list. If not, Lydia gets a brown head.

 

One of the great features of the new Nexus site is that you can Preview file content before downloading. This saves me from having to poke around in the archive file looking for overwrites.

 

You should package your vampire fix. I would download it.

I have not done Dawnguard in years. I started it a few nights ago & guess what I see on the first random vampire attack.

 

Most GPUs get overworked in this game if you use ENB. My GTX 1080 ti is overworked trying to maintain 60fps running the game at 4k resolution with ENB & Reshade. My other GTX 1080 ti is not working hard at all since it is running the game at 3440 X 1440.

When the game came out I was using a GTX 980 ti. At 2560 X 1440 it could not maintain a decent frame rate with ENB. That is when I got most of the black face bug. Using Reshade only, fixed the problem. Then I upped the resolution to 4k & the issue was back.

My favorite way to play Skyrim SE is on my 3440 X 1440 monitor. It beats even 4k. Black face bug will not be an issue for me until I upgrade to a higher resolution WS monitor.

 

Later

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