Tried to replace Mantis helmet with Explorer's helmet, missing face and textures not working

[Maicol0815]

So, I tried to make a replacer for Mantis helmet using the Explorer helmet. The issue ran into was that in-game, the helmet was now missing the face. I know the mantis helmet doesn't have a face since it's hidden, but since I replaced the .nif to the explorer one I would've tought it'd change and show the face since it's a different mesh. I remember I needed to add morphs too, but that didn't change anthing.
And the changes I made to texture (tried to make it black/grey instead of white) didn't appear, just the plain old textures. Perhaps that's because the .nif file is referencing the old explorer helmet textures in the explorer helmet folder, but I can't use .nifskope to edit it because idk, nifskope doesn't support starfield somehow, so any alternatives there?

Also, is there any program where you can edit .nif files and textures live, so you can see all changed to the textures happen in real time? Just to get reference to what goes where?

[gabgone]

Hi there, I believe that the face is invisible because of the settings of the armor in the .esp file.

Let me explain: each armor part can be flagged to cover a specific part of the body: legs, arms, full body, head, face, hair, long air, eyes.

This is done to "overwrite" the naked body that otherwise would clip with the armor.

 

mantis helmet, the original one, covers the whole head, you don't even see the eyes, same for the hair. This is because it is flagged to replace the head completely.

If you use an helmet with transparency, you'll see a empty helmet.

 

Until xEdit or creation kit will be out, I believe there is no workaround.

Edited September 29, 2023 by gabgone