SSE Is there a fairly hassle-free way I can seperate the outfit variants into seperate mesh files?

[AncientFlamingBeast]

I've been working on a skimpy armor and clothes replacer, but I decided to take a few creative liberties and add some details from the male version of some outfits. I wanted to add a bit of parity between the 2 sets so they don't look so drastically different, as well as have a baseline for when I eventually get around to making a skimpy version of the male armors and clothes in the same style.

 

The problem with that comes when you try and equip one of the variant outfits. For those who don't know, some outfits (mostly clothing items) have multiple different color versions of the same outfit (red blacksmith's apron and grey blacksmith's apron, blue merchant's dress and orange merchant's dress, etc.) but the files only contain one mesh file for all variants. When change the mesh, I.E. make it skimpier, the mesh for both get's change, and what I assume is happening is that a different texture is being applied to the variant outfit, rather than having 2 completely different outfits. With all that said, when I use parts of the male outfit, when the variant outfit is equipped, the game doesn't know to texture those parts with the male variant texture, they just get textured with the female variant, thus leaving the texture all wonky.

 

My question, in case you weren't able to gleam it so far, is there a way to EITHER tell the separate parts in the mesh file (I use OutfitStudio, so most parts of the mesh are separated into different pieces [i don't know the best way to label each term to avoid confusion, so I hope you know what I'm referring to]) to point to the male variant textures instead of just applying a blanket texture to everything, or a way to separate the pre-existing variant outfits in-game to point to a new mesh without having to do some sort of round-about "removing the vanilla variant outfits to add my own meshes and then inject them in to the game" sort of thing? (maybe I'm overthinking that, I dunno)

[scorrp10]

I really have no idea what is your work process for 'adding details from male version', but generally when you start, you should have something like this:

 

 

Where you got your body mesh (CBBE) and one or more meshes comprising the outfit - female bits in this case.

When you import additional stuff from another .nif, it gets added as additional, separate mesh(es). Like 'male bits' in this hack job:

 

 

And these meshes have their own properties, and point to their specific textures. And unless you do some stuff like 'copy properties' from female bits to male, male bits ought to have their own textures, and not 'get textured with female variant'.

 

Now when you create it in the studio, save the project, and then build it in BodySlide, now you can go into the Creation Kit and edit the ArmorAddon that uses that .nif.

When you click the 'Select' button in the ArmorAddon window for Female Biped Model, you might see this:

 

 

See that 'New Texture' column? That is where you can click and assign to a specific mesh a different texture set. That is how you can do a bunch of color variants on a single mesh.

In fact, it has a texture set specified on slot 1 (female bits), making it red instead of black

 

Now here is the fun part. Notice how in Outfit Studio, mesh order is:

CBBE

female bits

male bits

 

Now suppose that CBBE reference was a static one and you decided to replace it with a physics one. So you delete existing body, and load up 'CBBE Body Physics' reference instead.

Now, the order is:

female bits

male bits

CBBE

 

Guess what happens in the ArmorAddon?

 

 

slot 1 is now 'male bits', and the red texture set now applies to them, making the 'all wonky'.

 

Moral of the story: if armors you are working on make use of texture sets to create color variants, you need to be very very careful to keep the original order of meshes intact and have any added meshes listed after original ones.

[AncientFlamingBeast]

Interesting, interesting. I had no idea that the order of the pieces in a mesh file was important. I also hadn't touched the CreationKit yet, I figured I would probably have to get into it, but I'm not familiar with it all too much, so I was trying to do as much as I can in OutfitStudio before having to branch out, but thank you very much for your reply, this may very well be exactly what I was looking for.

 

Here is some more info about my process just to clear up any possible confusing regarding your answer:

 

I really have no idea what is your work process for 'adding details from male version', but generally when you start, you should have something like this:

 

I take the vanilla male outfit for something like the Farm 4 outfit, I take some pieces from it (Leggings only exist in male version, so I use that style, I like an over shirt type design so I use the male options for that, sometimes the sleeves, etc.) skimpify them, as well as make them fit the female body. Using both parts from both male and female vanilla outfits, I get to mix the 2 styles so the male and female outfits aren't so drastically different, here's a picture for an example;

 

 

https://imgur.com/LnoMctW

 

As you can see, I just sorted the parts by top to bottom of the body, what you're telling me is that it's very important to have the body listed first, female bits second, then male bits? On top of that, should I attach everything that's a female bit into 1 single part and same with male, or is it ok to have each part separate?

 

And these meshes have their own properties, and point to their specific textures. And unless you do some stuff like 'copy properties' from female bits to male, male bits ought to have their own textures, and not 'get textured with female variant'.

 

I don't think I did what you're saying here, but what I DID do was every piece of skimpy female bits I used and every skimpy piece of male bits I used, I used the "Merge Geometry..." option in OS to attach them to their respective "vanilla" outfits in order to preserve all the info attached to each piece... I imagine that sounds confusing, I'm struggling to explain it in the best way. I'm using different parts from different skimpy mods, and sometimes the mod author applies a different environment map, or different alpha properties, etc. so my assumption/hope is that when I grab the vanilla outfit (CBBE outfit from CBBE mod's BodySlide, but close enough) and attach anything that's supposed to have that outfit's textures to the vanilla outfit, then all that extra data will be uniform on the pieces I want to keep, then I can get rid of the vanilla outfit. Here's some pictures to hopefully better explain.

 

 

https://imgur.com/kHup1Zb

 

Here's CBBE Orcish Armor (Left) and TAWOBA's Orcish Abs (Right) Notice how the two different pieces are different colors.

 

 

https://imgur.com/cmeMPeq

 

Here, I go into the Shape Properties of the Orcish Abs and use the "Copy from Shape..." Option to copy the data from the CBBE Orcish.

 

 

https://imgur.com/k1aAiNu

 

After that, I use "Merge Geometry..." to attach the Orcish Abs to the CBBE Orcish (I usually have to clear up some conflicts, like the partitions not matching, and the alpha values)

 

 

https://imgur.com/rClBC9F

 

Now, it looks like this. The CBBE Orcish and the Orcish Abs are now the same piece, and they have the "proper" coloration. Lastly, I just delete the CBBE Orcish entirely, and just keep the Orcish Abs, along with all the other parts I've used to put together my skimpy outfit. I also do the same thing with the HIMBO outfits if I've used a part of a male mesh, or sometimes a baseline mesh that's pretty universal that I then copy the male textures onto. (Leggings, leglets, armlets, belts, straps, etc.)

Edited June 13, 2023 by AncientFlamingBeast

[Sphered]

I know what you are aiming to do, and yeah at times I want the same thing, to not worry with a swarm of texture sets

 

Use Nifskope for this. Take meshes you want to reroute textures for and do it there in the shader properties in skope

 

Very quick and easy once you see how. Just have to get acquainted with that app

[scorrp10]

what you're telling me is that it's very important to have the body listed first, female bits second, then male bits? On top of that, should I attach everything that's a female bit into 1 single part and same with male, or is it ok to have each part separate?

The order of parts by itself is completely irrelevant. But if game uses texture sets to create multiple color variations from the same mesh, those parts must remain in the same position in the list for the texture sets to apply properly.

As to the number of various bits - In general, especially in Outfit Studio, it is easier to work with an outfit when it is broken up into its components. You can move/scale/rotate and sculpt individual pieces much more easily. However, the more separate shapes are there in a mesh file, the harder it is on performance.

 

Here, I go into the Shape Properties of the Orcish Abs and use the "Copy from Shape..." Option to copy the data from the CBBE Orcish.

And that is what 's most likely messing you up. When you copy properties, it also copies the textures that mesh is using. If meshes use different textures, it is most likely they got different UV maps - and you will have a mess...