SSE Texture editing programs and 3d meshes?

[Nap1985]

Are there any free programs that let you edit textures, or images, with the mesh loaded? Even if you have to convert the image later to dds? I'm just getting into trying to make my first mod and it's a kind of detailed face tattoo/overlay that is a nightmare to make look decent after it morphs in game to your characters face.

[Hanaisse]

What I do when making overlays is;

 

- Create the overlay as a layer overtop the femalehead.dds (or malehead.dds) texture and save it as a dds with a unique name.

- Open the femalehead.nif (or malehead.nif) in Nifskope, and redirect the head texture to my new texture. This saves having to go in game each time to see what it will look like and adjustments can easily be made.

- Keep nifskope open as you make changes to the texture and it will update everytime you save the texture.

- When it's perfectly adjusted (and yes, it takes time), delete the actual head texture and save the overlay as you normally would.

- Now test in game.

 

Keep in mind different races (Elves, Orcs) have different facial shapes and features and you may have to create separate overlays for them.

[Nap1985]

I actually started doing just that! Loading up nifskope is much, much quicker than loading in game. I did make some progress this way but I'm thinking it will never be perfect. Best I can hope for is reasonably smooth lines that don't look like they were drawn while sitting in a vibrating chair.

[scorrp10]

Blender has direct texture painting.

[Nap1985]

So I discovered by accident that you can keep the game running and replace the file and it will update in game just fine. Just had to change my preset back and forth to one that had the tattoo on. Nifskope method works well too but my characters are generally pretty far off from the base head model.

 

And I did install blender and...whoa. Looks like quite the learning curve.