ESL-ifying and form id/bodyslide?

[Nap1985]

I was going through and esl-ifying all my simpler mods (mostly armor and weapons) and several I had to compact the form id's first. Will this matter for bodyslide files? I'm inclined to think not, but I thought I would check before I get too far.

 

Edit: And also, from what I read it's safe to esl most smaller/simpler mods even if they are a master for something else, unless you've got to compact the form id's, then the mod which requires that mod will be broken? I'm looking at stuff like UIExtensions and other small utility mods?

Edited January 18, 2023 by Nap1985

[scorrp10]

Bodyslide just generates the mesh files. No relevance to FormIDs.

Compacting FormIDs on a file that is master to something else is a bad idea.

Sometimes one mod might not have another as master, but use 'getformfromfile' to obtain certain properties of another mod. A fairly common practice with advanced follower mods. Compacting IDs breaks this.

If compacting IDs on mods that add NPCs, you will need to rename the head .nif's under meshes/actors/character/facegendata/facegeom to match their new formids.

Also, doing this if you have games in progress is a straight path to save corruption and future CTDs. At least make sure to delete (removeitem) any armor/weapons already in game from those mods.

[Nap1985]

Thank you! I'm still building load order haven't really played yet. Just launching here and there to make sure it launches. I've only compacted form ids in mods that only add items and have no other patches associated with them. I have a TON of weapons/armor mods that add just a handful of items and I thought it would be safer to esl rather than merge. I did compact and esl a few patches. For example I compacted a mod that created a 1 hand version of a two hand sword, but did not compact the original which it requires. I'm assuming this is safe.

 

A handful of the mods may have had npc's, I will have to revert those to the backup I think, but I did find an xedit script that is specifically for esl-ifying followers, supposed to handle that for you, but I don't know how well it actually works yet.

 

This causes the black face issue I've read about? I'm assuming this would only be an issue for humanoids with a face preset and not creatures?

[scorrp10]

Black face is most commonly caused when head parts in the head nif do not match head parts of the actor form in the esp. Most typical when more than one mod overloads an NPC and load order is wrong. If head nif is missing entirely, it often causes a CTD...

[Algabar]

 

A handful of the mods may have had npc's, I will have to revert those to the backup I think, but I did find an xedit script that is specifically for esl-ifying followers, supposed to handle that for you, but I don't know how well it actually works yet.

 

This causes the black face issue I've read about? I'm assuming this would only be an issue for humanoids with a face preset and not creatures?

You probably mean this one:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/56396

 

I've used it succesfully. It does what it says and always worked - at least for me.

 

Regarding black faces: You're right. Compacting form IDs in mods, that contain NPCs, without adjusting the names of the headmeshes and tintmasks in your facegen folders is one way to get black faces. If you use the script linked above, you should be able to avoid this issue.

 

As scorrp10 pointed out, another and probably the most common reason for black faces are conflicts and load order issues with mods making changes to NPCs.