SSE Can't get my WIP Hair Mod to change colors in racemenu

[ArchAngelAries]

I've been attempting to create a Lion's mane and was going to reach out to the original author to use their assets if a release was possible, but as it is it's a personal use. I've got the hair showing up in-game just fine, but for some reason the hair won't change colors in the racemenu... any help would be appreciated.

 

 

[Hanaisse]

Without seeing the mesh this is just guess work. Make sure your hair mesh is set up similar to vanilla hair. Open two instances of Nifskope for each mesh and compare them side by side.

 

In particular check the BSLightingShaderProperties and ensure you have the correct shader options - Shader Type: Hair Tint and Shader Flags 1 - Hair Soft Lighting are both necessary, Vertex Colours are typical.

[ArchAngelAries]

Without seeing the mesh this is just guess work. Make sure your hair mesh is set up similar to vanilla hair. Open two instances of Nifskope for each mesh and compare them side by side.

 

In particular check the BSLightingShaderProperties and ensure you have the correct shader options - Shader Type: Hair Tint and Shader Flags 1 - Hair Soft Lighting are both necessary, Vertex Colours are typical.

Thanks for your reply! I copied the properties from a vanilla hair nif as suggested, texture paths are all correct, I even tried testing a TextureSet record for the model to reference in an alternate test ESP, and yet it doesn't seem to be working. I have a hunch the mesh's specularity setting might be the issue, but I'm not sure.

[Hanaisse]

What is the specular set at?

[ArchAngelAries]

What is the specular set at?

I know you didn't offer... But if it's easier for you to examine the files yourself and instruct me where I've gone wrong, I'd appreciate it. Tbh, I really appreciate the troubleshooting you've offered so far.

 

Here's the link to my current build of the WIP.

[Hanaisse]

Oh, good, I was going to ask for it anyway :)

 

All your meshes are still missing Shader Flag 1 - Hair Soft Lighting.

In Shader Flag 2 remove the Vertex Colors flag, since your meshes don't use them.

The Glossiness of 150.0 is a little much, vanilla uses around 70-80. Unless you want it shiny. Play with the values to see what you want.

 

By the way, the partitions are all incorrect, it should be 31_Hair, not 32_Body.

[ArchAngelAries]

Awesome! That fixed it!! Thank you! Although now I'm having an issue when loading a save game with the hair applied to the character that parts of it are invisible and only revert if re-doing showracemenu and reselecting the hair... I thought this'd be super simple lol. By chance do you know what's causing that? Maybe bc there's so many polys? I tried to decimate the mesh in blender in the beginning, but the modifier did nothing.. As you can probably tell, I'm limited on my skill level :sweat:

[Hanaisse]

I think I understand what's happening, here's something to try;

In your nifs for all your "extra head parts only" change the BSDismemberSkinInstance to a NiSkinInstance.
The partitions are trying to compete against the main hair nifs. A NiSkinInstance does not require a partition.

So, for your 3 "extra parts" - _ALT Part 2-altpart.nif, _ALT LowerMane.nif and _ALT Part 3.nif open each in NifSkope.

Right click on the BSDismemberSkinInstance line and go to Block > Convert. Click on the only option here NiSkinInstance.

Save.
(Might want to make backups of the 3 files first).

Give that a test.

[ArchAngelAries]

So, I went ahead and tried that out and still the same results. If I was more skilled in 3D modeling, I feel I wouldn't be having such an issue lol. I really appreciate you taking your time and sticking with me on this troubleshoot. You're awesome :smile:

[Hanaisse]

So I've been testing the hair pieces myself and while I'd never seen the disappearing hair before, you're right, I get the same results. Your assumption may also be correct so let's talk about the grossly high poly meshes. :D

 

The main hair piece itself is 45k+ verts. Each hair part piece is 32k+ verts. Even the popular KS Hairdos are on average less than 9k verts. See where I'm going? When you add up the verts, one of your hairdos is 173k+ verts in total, and the other is 141k+ verts. It's no wonder the engine is saying 'no way'.

 

You need to get those meshes way down in vert count. You also need to split alt part 2-altpart.nif into 2 meshes. You can't have more than one BSTriShape per mesh for these. In fact, you should look to split all of your extra part meshes down into manageable sizes.

 

Here's some other tips;

 

- There's a ton of overlap when you combine the meshes into one hairdo. Start by deleting verts and/or whole pieces that will be covered by other pieces.

- There's a ton of verts sitting inside the head. Start deleting them.

- You don't need most of the geometry underneath each piece, just the surface, so start deleting from underneath. Try to only keep what will be seen. This is a common practice similar to making armor where the body underneath the armor is deleted.

 

Good luck. :)