SSE Enable/disable skin tint on mesh

[Cthorthu]

Hi!

 

I'm making some custom race, half human half animal, and there is one thing that I can't find:

 

How do you set a mesh to apply or not apply the character skin tint?

 

In my case, animal legs with human torso, the game applies the skin tint to the torso but not to legs.

 

So I need to know how to enable/disable this on each mesh.

 

I tried enabling/disabling the "skin tint" property in NifSkope and in OutfitStudio (replacing that for "default"). Results was: no effect; blue skin (very blue, for no reason); instant CTD (most times).

 

This is a huge X-File for me. Can you help me?

Edited August 31, 2022 by Cthorthu

[Sphered]

Might be that your armature record in the mod is pointing to a textureset. Also check the individual shapes since they too, can have retex attached. Those particular ones apply regardless of ShaderType be it SkinTint/Default/otherwise

[Cthorthu]

Thanks for your reply, but that is not the answer...

 

Torso+legs are one file with several meshes, with no texture sets.

 

I'm pretty sure this is a property of the mesh. All meshes that apply skin tone are set as "skin tint" or "face tint". There are no data in armor or armor addon that forces skin tone.

 

Anyway thanks for you time! :)

[maxarturo]

The skin tint that CK applies to actors is only possible if the actor has a 'Head' piece where the tint will be applied and it's in the game's humanoid races that the CK's actors generation can read, and that CK can export that tint to the actor's face generation data, and from there it's also applied to the head's rest linked meshes (torso - hands - legs).

In the case of a unified actor's mesh this can't be applied since there is no head part and no face generation data can be exported.

Edited September 1, 2022 by maxarturo

[Cthorthu]

I have made a lot of tests. Meshes set as skintint reacts different to light in game (applied pinkish tone by default). It is very noticeable, even in a custom race with no facegen.

 

And: How meshes are linked to face color? Can I link/unlink a mesh?

[Hanaisse]

If I understand what you're asking, you want to know how to apply the skin tint shader like body meshes have to the animal legs portion of your mesh?

 

To use the skin tint shader your legs would require a 'model space normal' normal map (the _msn.dds) as opposed to a regular 'tangent space' normal map (the _n.dds). The model space normal map is used in lieu of the meshes normals and also requires the nif to be flagged as no normals in the TriShapeData. They would also require the skin (the _sk.dds) and specular (the _s.dds) textures, the same as body's use but made for your particular animal legs.

[Cthorthu]

That's intetesring but not sure on some points.

Some info:

• My model has 2 NIF files:

The head (the mesh as a face part, and also facegen for each NPC).
The full body: This file has the upper body, hands, animal legs and loincloth.

• I removed subsurface textures (_sk) from all these files (and I have to say I accidentally solved the old neck seam problem).

• Normal maps for body-face-hands was exported by myself using standard formats (and "_n" marking).

• I also removed facetint textures from head file, so all meshes has 3 textures (_d, _n and _s).

This way, the game applies skin tone to head, upper body and hands, but not to animal legs (and not to loincloth).

So I want to "have the skill to" choose which meshes get skin tone.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Cthorthu

[Sphered]

If you want something to not get tint, Id suggest copy/paste the shaderdata from an ingame creature, to the shape you want to ignore the lighting digits in their actor record. Setting to Default, alone, might not necessarily cut it. Lot of us dont worry with memorizing Bethesda shader flags because frankly theres no need to. Plenty of templates we can copy from, and tweak as wanted

[Cthorthu]

Sphered, this has been a great idea. I had tried it before, with strange results, but thanks to your comment I have made new tests (also with strange results) but I have come a long way.

 

These are my results:

 

Test 1: Copy shader from legs to torso, so they have no skin tint.

Result: It works! Now torso have no skin tint aplied.

The strange thing is when reloading game, NPC had green color on torso (very strong emerald color, for no reason). But after spawning a new NPC and changing my race to my custom race on racemenu, NPC gone back to normal skin color.

 

Test 2: Copy shader from torso to legs, so they do have skin tint.

Result: Doesn't work. Legs still don't get skin tone.

 

Another thing: One of my problems is the pink tone that the game applies by default to the skin parts (when no other color is applied by skin tint). I thought it is caused by the skin tint propiety, but in test1, I discover I was wrong. The game doesn't apply skin tone but still applying pink tone (very noticeably with pale color skin textures). Now I think it must be caused by other shader propieties or normal or specular textures.

 

So thanks Sphered, your comment has been very useful to continue solving the adjustments that remain to be made to my mod :)