SSE Converting KS Hairdo to SMP KS Hairdo

[7izan]

Found CreationKit a little overwhelming so decided to try and change an npcs hair using NifSkope.

That said, I learned that the Actors without SMP lack additional NiNodes outside of NPC Head and NPC Spine 2 and therefore you cant just copy the the branch from the smp nif to the actor's NiNodeSkinned.

 

The smp requires additional nodes outside of NPC Head and NPC Spine 2.

Is there a step im missing trying to do this via NifSkope? If not, a link to a tutorial or an overview of the reg-to-smp hair process would be super helpful.

[Sphered]

Yeah this is not something that one just "does" real quick. You are in 3DSMax levels of territory, aka no sane way to do something like this in Skope etc. Would need to basically rebuild the skin for each hair you want to do this for. Then there is adding the physics components which you would probably want to look for detailed guides and possibly a discord server etc to get some pointers. Sadly none of this is even close to beginner-friendly and very time consuming even for those that know how to do it

[scorrp10]

I don't think OP is asking how to take a static hair mesh and turn it into an SMP one. That is rather advanced stuff that involves rigging, weighing and defining bone behavior, constraints, collision meshes etc. I have done it, rather time intensive stuff.

 

I think the question is - how does one take a hairdo that is already available in RaceMenu in SMP form and put it on an NPC?

 

The real real real easy way is to see if this hairdo exists in the form of a wearable wig. (If not, there are ways to convert)

Then just make it part of that NPCs outfit. Of course, the big problem is that in any situation when NPC takes everything off, the wig comes off as well.

 

The other option is making it part of NPCs 'naked' skin. You also need it in wearable wig form, you make its ArmorAddon a part of NPCs skin 'Armor'.

You also need to go into the NPC's head .nif and set 'hidden' flag on Hair and Hairline meshes. Or else they will have both showing.

 

Finally, the method when an SMP hair is made part of actual NPC head. I tried it on a number of occasions... and failed.

Generally, the way it works you define the additional bones for the physics bits - some of those anchor to the skeleton, and the rest 'hang' from those. You weigh mesh sections to those bones.

Then you create an xml file that declares those bones, how they behave, and all that. Link to this file is added in the .nif as StringExtraDate titled 'HDT Skinned Mesh Physics Object'

When .nif gets loaded, HDT engine sees the xml, and knows what to do with those extra bones that are not part of the primary skeleton.

 

So I get the head exported, all parts named properly, bones are present, HDT xml file included and edited to properly reflect mesh names, yada yada.

But, in the game, the moment it tries to load that NPC, instant crash. And looking at crash logs, it appears that engine is trying to render the head before HDT plugin has a chance to 'see' it.

 

So if anyone has successfully managed to incorporate SMP hair into an NPC Facegen mesh, I would really be interested to see how it is done.

[7izan]

Gotcha -- this is definitely beyond my abilities. Thank you both for the information