jpitner

sopmac45 - I stopped following this forum a few days ago but a friend pointed out your post to me. I was originally not going to bother to reply but there is a potential learning experience here. So if you read all of the conversations concerning my initial post you may get what I am about to say. First, I am far from blameless in everything that transpired and that I will openly admit. I had been reading through a lot if not all the comments here prior to my last reply and was already seeing the trend of certain Vortex and NMM "bashers". So when I read HadToRegister's post to me a second time I was a bit taken back by this particular comment, " I use Bijins among other and never experienced the black face bug and I didn't have to spend hours with Vortex doing it." My interpretation - "You did not read my whole comment and just called me an idiot for not being able to correctly install those mods in less time." Would not a better way to say the same thing have been - "What would normally take hours of messing around with in NMM can easily been accomplished in less than an hour with Vortex." causing no feeling of condescension or feeling patronized? Now concerning your comments on the Anti-Vortex/NMM camps. I am in Vortex/NMM neutral camp. They are both tools and an end user should use the one that best fits their needs. I, however, feel Vortex has great potential to be an outstanding mod manager, and it looks pretty (just had to throw that in there). Wednesday I did a clean install of SkyrimSE and Vortex on one of my drives. My initial installation was not so great, not Vortex's fault, but something related to download or installation. I was missing icons that allowed me to manage a game. Not a problem - uninstall, remove all remaining Vortex files, download, and reinstall - problem solved. Yes, for me Gopher is my bible when it comes to mod managers. While people were up in arms about FNIS not working for Mod Organizer I turned to a tutorial of Gopher's first for the correct solution. So now time to install mods and check things out. A little background, for SkyrimSE I use (to my surprise) 14 appearance mods, some from Nexus and a couple I have made, that conflict with each other in one way or another. In NMM they must be installed and loaded in the same exact order to play nice. Running LOOT messes up that order so the need is there to manually sort the order afterwards or get the black face bug for the Companions, Thieves Guild, Bards College, and a few other NPCs. So I load these mods plus 100 others. On purpose I installed Guild Members Overhaul in the incorrect order to see what happens. I set up the rules for the correct order and to my surprise everything worked perfectly. Many sorts later and still not one NPC had the black face bug. The only problem I had was with a texture only file I have and Vortex ignoring it after install. I am sure there is a way to get that to work, I just haven't researched it yet. Now this is with SSE and my initial problem was with FO4 and an older version of Vortex (I think) so I don't know. So pick a camp! No, pick a tool and forget the camps. Then be a bit more selective on the forums I view. This one is on me. Contact Tannin - never going to happen. I feel bad for him. He must get 1000's of requests demands from users to add/change/remove things from Vortex for their own personal experience. I am just a mediocre mod author and I get those demands and IMHOs all the time. I will help those who ask/request nicely, even the not so nice ones.

I just re-read your your posts and I am starting to feel you are a bit condescending. I may not have as many mods uploaded to Nexus as you, wait, I do, and I believe you have commented on one or two. I may not have as many hours gaming as you but I think 5000+ hours gaming and as many in CK does give my a small amount of knowledge. I used Mod Organizer for my SkyrimLE modding successfully for a couple years with very few issues. So Vortex should be a fine piece of software down the road once developers start listening to users instead of telling them they are wrong. You are sounding like a used car salesman. I test drive your car and bring it back saying the clutch is a bit loose and it won't go into 3rd gear. Your reply would be that the car is fine and I just don't know how to drive a standard transmission even though I have been driving stick for years. Bottom line: I had a problem with Vortex, I identified the problem, I gave examples of the problem then professionalism went out the window. As with every other comment on this topic there seems to be no true discussion. There is a pro Vortex camp and an anti Vortex camp with very minimum solutions or suggestions, just a bunch of egos requiring stroking or self validation.

Sorry, I have never had an issue with Black Face in FO4 but since I intend to use Vortex with both SSE and FO4, reasoning for managing load order is important.

Actually that is partially incorrect, most Black Face bugs are user generated. Example: I make a mod that gives Jordis a makerover, let us call it MyJordis.esp. I create the mod, create the facegendata, and then create an archive of the mod using the facegendata from MyJordis.esp (000a2c8f.nif). Then I send it to you, you install it and find that your Jordis has a black face. The reason why is that I used custom head data so in the facegen nif head part DynamicTriShapes are given a name in the nif (ex: JP_JordisFemaleHead). The problem is the game engine is looking for those named headparts in the Skyrim.esm 000a2c8f.nif facegendata folder (not the MyJordis.esp folder) that the MyJordis.esp said were there. Simply copying the nif from the facegendata folder MyJordis.esp to the Skyrim.esm folder fixes the issue. Why this and load order is important: You make a mod called YourHousecarls.esp and create the facegendata for the housecarls. Then SkyrimGoddess makes a mod that changes Iona called HerIona.esp and creates the facegendata. I then make a mod called MyJordis.esp and create the facegendata. So installation order and load order are extremely important here so the last esp loaded correctly matches the DynamicTriShapes naming for that nif or in this case YourHousecarls.esp must be installed before the other two and loaded before the other two otherwise Iona and Jordis will have black faces. I know this for fact because I spent many hours figuring out the correct installation and load order so I can use Pandorable's NPCs, Pandorable's Dawnguard, all 3 of BJIN's mods, Guild Member Overhaul, Migal's Iona, my Dawnguard changes, and my Jordis makeover so I can have the NPC appearances that I want without having to create a bunch of patches. I have no Black Face bugs and everything works like a dream. When the game engine encounters an incorrect or missing texture, incorrect or missing mesh, or an incorrect DynamicTriShape name in the facegendata nif file it reverts back to the NPC's default race head data and removes textures giving you the Black Face bug. So yes, load order is important so the last loaded esp corresponds to the correct facegendata mesh.

HadToRegister - I would like to add that I appreciate the fact that you are trying to replicate the error I had. Sometimes my words can sound like I am a bit short with someone, well sometimes I am. In this case I am just a bit frustrated with Vortex so I do appreciate your effort.

Try group assignments instead and see if you get better results. That has worked well for me. Thank you, when and if I try Vortex again I will look into that.

Please read my initial post. I never said the patch loaded before the dependencies. 1. I installed HAIA With Crafting 2. I installed Hangman's Alley Optimized and set rule to load after HAIA With Crafting 3. I installed Hangman's Alley Optimized - HAIA With Crafting - Patch and set rule to load after Hangman's Alley Optimized. Everything worked fine for awhile. Added a few more mods days later then went to Hangman's Alley and build area was reduced. Checked rules, still okay, looked at load order, now Hangman's Alley Optimized is loading before HAIA With Crafting. Rechecked rules and rule still is Hangman's Alley Optimized to load after HAIA, redid a sort and still wrong. Got out of Vortex and manually changed order. Did not open Vortex for a couple more days, played my game then decided to test a home I was working on. Open Vortex, installed the mod, did a sort then went into game. Later I went back to Hangman's Alley and the build area once again was reduced, checked my loadorder.txt and the mods were once again out of order. I also installed the mods exactly as you did. Before anything else is said I will let you know, I run 3 different drives with 3 different operating systems, one is a vanilla setup I use for CK work, one is for my main games, the other is for my testing work where I have my games with about 100+ mods installed and this is where Vortex was installed so my CK work and a 200+ modded game were not located on this drive and have nothing to do with the error. Vortex was also used only to mod FO4 on that drive as I kept NMM for SSE. Making HAIA as a master is a great idea if I was only dealing with 2 mods. In SSE I use 3 different "appearance" mods that change NPC appearances plus 2 that I made. These have to be installed and loaded in an exact order or I will get the "black face" bug. Using NMM and LOOT these can get knocked out of order but with NMM it is easy to just drag and drop the plugins to the correct order. My concerns are that I will experience the same issues using Vortex to manage SSE that I had with Hangman's Alley. The only reason I was here today reading is because I am thinking of doing clean installs of FO4 and SSE on my main drive and using Vortex to manage my mods but I have my concerns about load order manipulation.

I created them by "load after" rules. I am just hoping I am missing something here because I actually liked Vortex.

You missed the point, by a long shot. First, I like Vortex but it does me no good if it can't correctly manage my load order or let me do it. I may not be an expert but I am far from a novice. I played around a lot with Vortex because it's concept is a good one. I used MO for SkyrimLE for the same reasons I tried Vortex. So explain to me, if you want your mods to work correctly and load in the correct order, and Vortex will not do it or allow you to manual control your load order, then what choices do you have. Guess I could have removed the rules and set global priority for the mods but doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? The reason I had to edit the loadorder.txt was because Vortex kept changing it to the wrong load order. It is Vortex's issue of not following rules set that caused me to edit my loadorder.txt, meaning Vortex was already confused. Sorry, but I like the mods to work when I install them and I am intelligent enough to know when there are conflicts or load order issues. And yes, Vortex does change your load order, that is one of it's selling points - built in LOOT, and if you have the automatic sort function selected, it appears that sorting is done every time Vortex is started. To me that is one of it's strongest and desirable features, if it would follow the rules set for the different mods to actually work. Yes, I do know how to set rules for mods. My post was only to enforce the opinion that some form of manual manipulation of the load order is needed. I even gave an example so this could be verified, which is a lot more than I get with bug reports on my mods. Don't assume that I dislike Vortex, to me Vortex is a step above Mod Organizer and I loved MO for SkyrimLE. You can, however, assume that I dislike the lack of manual load order sorting.

I have read over a lot of the comments here concerning Load Order and how well Vortex handles it. I strongly disagree that rules work and that load order can be controlled in Vortex. I say this because I have had issues where Vortex decided my rules were wrong and decided to change my load order for me, breaking mods. The example I am about to give is the reason I went back to NMM. It involves 2 mods and a patch; Hangman's Alley Interior Apartments, Hangmans Alley Optimized, and the patch Hangmans Alley Optimized - HAIA. What worked in NMM was HAIA loaded first, then Hangmans Alley Optimized then the patch. Worked like a dream. So in Vortex I set the rules for Optimize to load after HAIA and the patch to load after the other two. Worked at first but then a couple days later I noticed that the build area was no longer the size it was before. Checked Vortex and the rules were still present. Looked at my AppData Fallout 4 folder and found that Vortex had changed my loadorder.txt to load Optimize first then HAIA second and the patch last. I closed down Vortex, manually edited my loadorder.txt to reflect the correct load order and went on to a working game. A few days later I opened Vortex to add a mod I was working on and testing. I went on to playing when Hangman's alley was under attack, after all was done I noticed the build area had shrunk again to the size predetermined in HAIA, looked at my loadorder.txt and again the mods were out of order. So I tested it, changed the loadorder.txt to the correct order, opened Vortex, closed Vortex, and looked at the loadorder.txt again to find that once again Vortex changed it to reflect the incorrect order. The only solution to have a smooth running game was to remove Vortex and use NMM and I have had no issues since. Bottom line here is manual load order manipulation is required at times. I really liked Vortex but if I have to constantly open up and edit my loadorder.txt file then why do I need it? Just my thought on the matter now that it seems that it is use Vortex or a slightly disable NMM. Maybe I will be lucky and someone will create an Unofficial Vortex Patch to fix the bugs.

In response to post #46432020. #46432065, #46432170 are all replies on the same post. Sorry, have to chime in here. The Game Forums here do not work well for me to get answers but that is just me. I don't ask questions I just search for an answer to my question that should have already been asked, again, that is just me. Google is my best friend. You may have to reword your search several times to get what you are looking for but you can find the answer. DarkFox127 has some amazing tutorials and if I recall Arthmoor's posts somewhere provided me answers as well. Your second best friends are mod authors themselves and I think you will find a lot of good people here. SkyrimLazz was a major help to me getting started but more because he pointed me in the right direction instead of giving me answers. Answered a lot of questions that way I hadn't even thought of asking yet. Next, download a home by someone else and tear it apart. Figure out how they did it. I tore apart FO4's Mechanix's Lair (sp?) to figure out how Bethesda did internal settlements. The best advice I can give you, install a second drive in your machine. Install Windows, all your games, and CKs. Use dual boot (I use Linux Grub) and work tearing apart and creating mods there. You never have to worry about messing up your main game, which I did, and as an added bonus you can test your packed up mod in your main game before uploading it, plus you are not so worried about experimenting with different things that could break your game. Also have someone with modding experience test your mod first. They will be more likely to find issues and be able to provide you with solutions. To answer you first question, "How Long?". I can throw a workable home together in a day for personal use but it can take easily a 100 hours to put together a good home and considerably more time to create a home that makes me remotely happy. Hope that helps.

Well I turned adblocker off but now it is going back on. I have twice now had "Urgent Firefox Update" try to load and a java script try to execute while on this site. I do not know which ads are causing it but since I only use this operating system and Firefox for CK and Nexus I am 99.9% sure they are from this site. Sorry, I tried.