esl to esp-fe?

[7531Leonidas]

The mod New Companions ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/70372 ) has added NPCs that ALL have dark faces. When I checked in xEdit, the mod is in ESL format, and I think that it forces the mod to load early, and get overridden by everything else. The poster of the mod has deleted their account, but left the mod page active, so I cannot ask them.

 

Can I change the mod header to remove the esl status, save it, and re-set the esl flag to make it esp-fe? Will this cause problems on an active game save?

 

Thanks!

[Dashyburn]

Just had a look Leo and the file is already an espfe, the author labelled it 'esl flagged' which can cause mild confusion as it can be a literal esl or an espfe :)

[scorrp10]

To answer your question - you change 'esl' to 'esp-fe' by simply changing its file name extension to .esp A .esl file is considered a 'light master' and will load real high, typically right after .esm files. Change file extension to .esp, and it becomes an 'esp-fe' that is light, but can load anywhere in the order.

 

When I checked in xEdit, the mod is in ESL format, and I think that it forces the mod to load early, and get overridden by everything else.

Should not matter in the slightest. If the mod was overwriting some vanilla NPCs, and there were other mods in the order also overwriting same NPCs, it would be an issue. But this mod only adds a few new NPCs, so its load order has no relevance whatsoever.

 

The reason they all got black faces is author apparently forgot to include head meshes in the mod. The facetint textures are there but head meshes are missing.

That said, it looks like they use vanilla assets only. No custom head parts defined.

What you should be able to do is load this .esp in Creation Kit(preferably with Fixes), select the actor records that it adds, and hit Ctrl+F4, which should create FaceGen meshes.

[7531Leonidas]

Will give it a try, scorrp, thanks! I have a time picking through the CK stuff to find the actors, however. Too many choices once I get the file set as the active file.

 

Well, I found the 5 actor records, selected them, hit Ctrl+F4, and pushed the plugin to PC after seeing 'Done'.

 

I did something wrong, because now there are two of each actor in the game, one with the black face bug, and one without. Oops! I assume I can 'disable' the bad ones, and keep playing this game, but I am not sure, and also not sure if the twinned chars will show up in a new game.

 

Just started a new game, using ASLAL, starting from the Bannered Mare - there are still five pairs of NPCs from this mod, one-half of each pair bugged.

[scorrp10]

I have no idea what you did, but you really did not have to make any changes to the esp. I suggest you just reinstall the mod, restoring the esp. The head mesh files you generated should remain in place.

[7531Leonidas]

Found the problem - CK made a new esp-fe out of my efforts when I pushed the plugin to PC, and the original .esl was still active, so had two of the same mod running. Just disabled the one, for now.

 

Thanks for the help!