Adding freckles to custom NPC without creating a neck seam

[primem0ver]

How do I do this? Diamond skin for example says that any modification of the skin files will create a seam. Sure enough, if I overlay freckles and re-convert a file back into a dds I get a seam. So how do I do this? Is there a way to add freckles using texture sets in creation kit to a custom NPC skin or does that require a custom race?

[Algabar]

Depends on where you want the freckles to be.

 

Freckles in the face only are relatively easy:

The game uses so-called "detailmaps" to add freckles (or other kinds of blemishes / marks etc.). Most skin mods come with their own detailmaps for freckles. Standard name is "femaleheaddetail_frekles.dds" (yes, "frekles"!). By default, these are in Skyrim SE/data/textures/actors/character/female. If a character should have a "smooth" face without blemishes or freckles, the game uses a file called "blankdetailmap.dds". It is by default in Skyrim SE/data/textures/actors/character/male. Although the "male" folder is used, this texture is in fact "unisex" and used by male and female NPCs alike.

 

Probably the easiest way is to load your NPC's head mesh into Nifskope and exchange the texture "blankdetailmap.dds" with the "femaleheaddetail_frekles.dds" of the skin mod you're using.Save the head mesh and you're done.

 

If you need help with the single steps, feel free to ask.

 

Freckles on hands and body are a different story:

This can be done, but it's advanced texture work. Basically you could use freckle textures e.g. from a Racemenu overlay mod and blend them on your skin textures in a program like Photoshop or GIMP.

Problem: This will inevitably change the skin color slightly and thereby produce seams. The only way to avoid seams is to do the blending process for head, body and hands textures and save them all in the same dds format.

Here's a tutorial that might give you an idea what to do.

[primem0ver]

Alright. Thanks a lot for the tips.

[primem0ver]

Freckles on hands and body are a different story:

This can be done, but it's advanced texture work. Basically you could use freckle textures e.g. from a Racemenu overlay mod and blend them on your skin textures in a program like Photoshop or GIMP.

Problem: This will inevitably change the skin color slightly and thereby produce seams. The only way to avoid seams is to do the blending process for head, body and hands textures and save them all in the same dds format.

Here's a tutorial that might give you an idea what to do.

Here's the thing. I am creating a replacer for Amalee from 3DNPC because I came across this mod and thought it was the perfect replacer (I did get permission) I still can't get this to work. The problem with the original mod is that the freckles on the body are all very yellow looking when using an ENB... (or at least on my machine.. the body freckle color don't look anything like the pictures) so I want to modify the skin (and use a different base). I am using bijin skin as the base. I created ny modified skin and used the same skin set that was the base for the modified skin. The head was WAAAAAY darker than the body and was a completely different color. So to make sure I was the cause of the problem, I replaced ALL textures with ones from the original skin mod. I still have the problem as can be seen here. ALL textures are from the same skin mod (Bijin skin). This is the result of the UNMODIFIED textures (with no tint mask from CK). Creating the tintmask in the CK makes it WAAAAAAY too dark. I have no idea how to fix this problem when the skins themselves from the same mod don't even match.

 

 

EDIT: the bottom line is that nothing works about this skin. Not even the original. This might have to do with the skin color but shouldn't that apply to everything? QNAM (skin light/color) is set and it does affect the base skin color but the head doesn't get changed to match. When I output the head tint mask (using ctrl-f4) the mask created is way too grey (darlk). Nothing seems to be working properly.

Edited September 4, 2022 by primem0ver

[Algabar]

Okay... First of all: Does the "original" NPC from "3D NPCs" have a neck seam? Mistakes and oversights happen. I once spent almost a whole evening trying to "fix" a NPC from one of the popular replacers, who had a clearly visible neckseam. I tried almost everything in vain, until I finally found out, that the modded NPC had a rather strange "neck color" entry. I set its opacity to zero (practically disabling it) and everything was okay... So, strange things can happen.

 

Regarding "Bijin Skin": It can have a minimal neck seam (depending on skin color, lighting conditions and ENB), but from my experience it basically "works okay". If in doubt, you can try a different skin mod though. In fact, this might be a good idea - just to rule out or confirm Bijin Skin as the culprit.

 

TBH, I never tried something like you want to do myself. So, I'm kinda out of my wits here.

 

Tintmasks from the CK might work - or not. I always used the ones from Racemenu. You can do that, too. Just remember to set the correct skin tone. Another option was to use the original tintmask (i.e. the one from the "Elisa" mod, if you're using her skin color).

You could also check in Nifskope, which tintmask is actually used.

 

At any rate, I'd focus on getting the NPC to work correctly with an unmodified skin first, before you work with custom, blended textures.