SSE trying to edit argis in ck - dark face bug of doom! HELP!

[squirrelfriend]

Hi all! I'm totally new to modding and I really wanted to change Argis' look so I decided to teach myself.

I had some issues in the very beginning and got help on that so I won't go through my whole process but this is all I've managed to do:

 

I downloaded Creation Kit, added some mods I wanted to use to change his look, and got to work.

---I used: Brows, The Eyes of Beauty, and KS Hairdos.

I exported facegen for Argis and a window popped up saying it was done.

Then I saved it all as a new plugin - esp - file, and made sure it was showing up in my Vortex Mod Manager, which it was.

I then made the ROOKIE mistake of testing my new plugin on my main save and Argis's face was dark brown, had vanilla hair, and his scar and blind eye were still there (not in the picture I included, but when I went back in they were there) even though I changed those features.

I tried to load a previous save wondering if maybe a different save file would contain his orginal features but he was still dark faced.

I finally figured out that I have conflicting mods because I use several hair mods as well as WICO which changes the appearance of most NPCs (Argis included)

so I went back and disabled WICO but that still didn't solve the problem.

I moved my mod to the bottom of the load order so it would overwrite but it didn't work. (Also hard to do with VMM? I couldn't figure out how to manage the load order unless it was one at a time)

I even started a new game with a brand new character to see if it would do anything and he was still dark faced so I don't know what to do.

 

I also noticed that every time I close CK and reopen it, Argis isn't exactly the way I left him. His eyes, hair, and brows are different from his normal vanilla look, but they still use vanilla features instead of items from the mods I chose.

For example: I chose "Sunrays" eyes, but when I reboot CK his eyes are "MaleEyesHumanLightBlue" (vanilla)

I chose "RoughSketch" hair, when I reboot CK his hair is "HairMaleNord10" (vanilla)

I chose "Brows1" but when I reboot, he has no brows.

He always reboots with the same items, just not the ones I chose.

Also, my CK will NEVER close properly. It always freezes before the window goes away completely and I have to force-quit it (I'm sorry, I'm impatient and I don't know better!) Could this be part of the problem??

 

I'm not particularly heartbroken about the whole thing, but I'm bummed that I can't get my mod to work. I just want to figure out how to either fix him or change a different NPC or maybe both?

I also want to eventually make a standalone follower but for now, I really just wanna get Argis looking his best.

 

ANY help is thoroughly appreciated! Thank you!

 

-----

 

Mod order : (Looking at plugins) (These are the ones I have enabled, but I do have more downloaded)

 

-Skin Feature Overlays (which I also disabled but didn't work)

-WICO Immersive Character

-WICO Immersive Dawnguard

-WICO Immersive People (all of these were disabled but didn't work, I did keep the Wild Hunt Gears though so??)

-WICO Wild Hunt Gears

-Unofficial Skyrim Patch

-TK Children (esm)

-Apachii Hair Females

-Apachii Hair Males

-SkyUI

-Static Mesh Improvement Mod

-KS Hairdos * (VMM shows a ! next to it and says it's made for a different game but all the mods I have with a ! still work and show up in-game. ???)*

-Depths of Skyrim

-Magical College of Winterhold

-Reduced Fog Interiors

-Marriage All

-Marriage Mod SE

-TK Children (esp)

-Reduced Fog Exteriors

-A Cat's Life

-The Paarthurnax Dilemma

-The Eyes of Beauty *

-Freckle Mania 2 *

-No PC Fall Damage

-Anyone Follows 2 *

-Character Making Extender

-Enhanced Character Edit

-DartHairColors - Natural *

-Brows *

-Barenziah Quest Markers *

-Wolf Twins

-LycHairstyler

-Cheat Room

-Friendly Brynjolf

-IcePenguinWorldMap *

-Rich Merchants of Skyrim

-Rings2hands

-Skyland Balanced

-Alternate Start

-Skyrim Flora Overhaul

-Relationship Dialogue Overhaul

----(my mod here, disabled)----

 

Looking back over, I see that all the mods I used to make Argis has a ! in VMM, stating that they were made for a different game (Skyrim instead of Skyrim SE). Is this my problem??? I don't remember them doing that before I used them in CK, but I don't know.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by squirrelfriend

[Algabar]

Okay, I'll try....

 

Crashing CK is always bad. It's possible that changes you made aren't saved properly. Unfortunately CTDs in the CK are quite common. If you really want to use the SE CK, "Creation kit fixes" are almost mandatory. I'd strongly recommend to install them.

 

 

Looking back over, I see that all the mods I used to make Argis has a ! in VMM, stating that they were made for a different game (Skyrim instead of Skyrim SE). Is this my problem??? I don't remember them doing that before I used them in CK, but I don't know.

 

That shouldn't happen. Are you sure you're using the SE CK? It's available from Bethesda.net. "Oldrim" CK won't work for SE.

 

 

General approach when working on mods: Work on a very basic and simple mod setup. Only install what you really need for testing your mod. If you use a mod manager with profile support (like Vortex or MO 2), you should create a very basic "mod test" profile. If you have mods installed that make changes to Argis, it's next to impossible to find out what exactly the problem with your mod is. Try to rule out interferences with other mods as much as possible.

Black faces are usually a load order issue. But I'd leave sorting out load order for last. Create your mod without other (possibly) interfering mods installed and make sure it basically works. Then fix your full load order.

 

I also noticed that every time I close CK and reopen it, Argis isn't exactly the way I left him. His eyes, hair, and brows are different from his normal vanilla look, but they still use vanilla features instead of items from the mods I chose.

 

 

To minimize problems like this, I'd suggest to create custom texture paths for eyes, brows etc. Create a subfolder for Argis e.g. in /textures/actors/character and copy the eye and brows textures there. Then update to these textures in the CK.

 

When working on NPCs, you should also use Nifskope. Open the head mesh you exported from the CK in Nifksope and check texture paths. You may have to adjust them.

[squirrelfriend]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I will try all this!! :)