HeadPart and Material swap

[lee3310]

Does anyone managed to get the matswap applied to a nif used in headpart to show up ingame ? Only texture sets are working for me.
I used matswaps for different objects in the past with not a single problem excepte with head parts. No matter what i try, the default material (texture) set in the .nif is the only one that gets rendered ingame. I can see the new texture when i edit the nif in editor (render window) and apply a new material.
It's like the matswap is completely ignored by the game when it comes to head part. Is this a know limitation/bug ?

Edited November 12, 2023 by lee3310

[South8028]

What is "matswap"? There is not just one head in the game, there are dozens of them, they are located in the Morphs folder in characterassets. Probably the mfg system works on the havok bones in these heads, the heads themselves are morphs of faceemotion.

[lee3310]

What is "matswap"? There is not just one head in the game, there are dozens of them, they are located in the Morphs folder in characterassets. Probably the mfg system works on the havok bones in these heads, the heads themselves are morphs of faceemotion.

I'm referring to Material Swap in CK (MSWP record in xedit) and headPart like hair, beard, eyes... . I have no idea how headPart works internally, all i know is that i can handle them in papyrus unlike LooksMenu face tints. I was planning on using one nif and just replace the material in editor but it doesn't work for head part, and TXST (texture sets), ignore all the custom effects set in the material like glow, emittance, transparency...

I will have to duplicate the nif and manually set the material in nifscope but i just wanted to make sure that matsawps do indeed not work with headparts.

[South8028]

Hmm... The material cannot be assigned? Only those textures that are in the nif? I think bgsm works. Otherwise the head would have been a different shade.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/dKR_gK9QD1hEyQ

Do these materials work?

[lee3310]

Hmm... The material cannot be assigned? Only those textures that are in the nif? I think bgsm works. Otherwise the head would have been a different shade.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/dKR_gK9QD1hEyQ

Do these materials work?

Thanks. You can actually assigne the material in editor and you can even see the texture/color change in the render window when you do it but when you load the game, the default material set in the nif is the one that gets displayed. I will try the material you sent me (basehumanfemaleskinhead) to see if it changes anything cause i suspected a nif/bgsm problem but i can't see how unless there is a special flag that has to be set/unset for the matswap to work.

I need to use matswap instead of Texture sets cause i'm trying to mimic the blending mod used by the game when you apply a face tint using looksMenu UI ("BlendOp" : "HardLight", SofLight...) and i can only achieve that by tweaking the material file (hardly cause i'm not very familiar with the settings).

Edited November 12, 2023 by lee3310

[South8028]

 

Hmm... The material cannot be assigned? Only those textures that are in the nif? I think bgsm works. Otherwise the head would have been a different shade.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/dKR_gK9QD1hEyQ

Do these materials work?

Thanks. You can actually assigne the material in editor and you can even see the texture/color change in the render window when you do it but when you load the game, the default material set in the nif is the one that gets displayed. I will try the material you sent me (basehumanfemaleskinhead) to see if it changes anything cause i suspected a nif/bgsm problem but i can't see how unless there is a special flag that has to be set/unset for the matswap to work.

I need to use matswap instead of Texture sets cause i'm trying to mimic the blending mod used by the game when you apply a face tint using looksMenu UI ("BlendOp" : "HardLight", SofLight...) and i can only achieve that by tweaking the material file (hardly cause i'm not very familiar with the settings).

This is just plain vanilla stuff, I sent it instead of a screenshot. ) This bgsm is assigned to the vanilla head in nif by default. Various parts of the face are also meshes with their own materials, also written in nif. Its as if the entire face consists of separate overlay meshes. I checked, all materials work. It is not textures from nif that are loaded, but specifically bgsm materials. If you remove bgsm and leave only textures, terrible seams come out. I don't know how all these parts work either. I looked, many parts have no textures at all, only gradient textures. The head itself has a D dxt5 texture for some reason. This is a controlled alpha channel format.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/jEWqPaxu0oRVqQ

Edited November 13, 2023 by South8028

[lee3310]

 

 

Hmm... The material cannot be assigned? Only those textures that are in the nif? I think bgsm works. Otherwise the head would have been a different shade.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/dKR_gK9QD1hEyQ

Do these materials work?

Thanks. You can actually assigne the material in editor and you can even see the texture/color change in the render window when you do it but when you load the game, the default material set in the nif is the one that gets displayed. I will try the material you sent me (basehumanfemaleskinhead) to see if it changes anything cause i suspected a nif/bgsm problem but i can't see how unless there is a special flag that has to be set/unset for the matswap to work.

I need to use matswap instead of Texture sets cause i'm trying to mimic the blending mod used by the game when you apply a face tint using looksMenu UI ("BlendOp" : "HardLight", SofLight...) and i can only achieve that by tweaking the material file (hardly cause i'm not very familiar with the settings).

This is just plain vanilla stuff, I sent it instead of a screenshot. ) This bgsm is assigned to the vanilla head in nif by default. Various parts of the face are also meshes with their own materials, also written in nif. Its as if the entire face consists of separate overlay meshes. I checked, all materials work. It is not textures from nif that are loaded, but specifically bgsm materials. If you remove bgsm and leave only textures, terrible seams come out. I don't know how all these parts work either. I looked, many parts have no textures at all, only gradient textures. The head itself has a D dxt5 texture for some reason. This is a controlled alpha channel format.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/jEWqPaxu0oRVqQ

 

You are talking about the whole head not just "BaseFemaleHead.nif" ? then yeah, eyes, hair, mouth, scras... are separate meshes and even if they have a material file set in the .nif, Bethesda only using texture sets in order to change the color for them (like hair).

I ended up making a .nif for each head part like with older Bethesda game (before matswap became a thing) and now i'm curious about this F4SE function:

HeadPart[] Function GetHeadParts(bool bOverlays = false) Native

What is this bOverlys flag or overlay list referring to

[South8028]

 

 

 

Hmm... The material cannot be assigned? Only those textures that are in the nif? I think bgsm works. Otherwise the head would have been a different shade.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/dKR_gK9QD1hEyQ

Do these materials work?

Thanks. You can actually assigne the material in editor and you can even see the texture/color change in the render window when you do it but when you load the game, the default material set in the nif is the one that gets displayed. I will try the material you sent me (basehumanfemaleskinhead) to see if it changes anything cause i suspected a nif/bgsm problem but i can't see how unless there is a special flag that has to be set/unset for the matswap to work.

I need to use matswap instead of Texture sets cause i'm trying to mimic the blending mod used by the game when you apply a face tint using looksMenu UI ("BlendOp" : "HardLight", SofLight...) and i can only achieve that by tweaking the material file (hardly cause i'm not very familiar with the settings).

This is just plain vanilla stuff, I sent it instead of a screenshot. ) This bgsm is assigned to the vanilla head in nif by default. Various parts of the face are also meshes with their own materials, also written in nif. Its as if the entire face consists of separate overlay meshes. I checked, all materials work. It is not textures from nif that are loaded, but specifically bgsm materials. If you remove bgsm and leave only textures, terrible seams come out. I don't know how all these parts work either. I looked, many parts have no textures at all, only gradient textures. The head itself has a D dxt5 texture for some reason. This is a controlled alpha channel format.

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/jEWqPaxu0oRVqQ

You are talking about the whole head not just "BaseFemaleHead.nif" ? then yeah, eyes, hair, mouth, scras... are separate meshes and even if they have a material file set in the .nif, Bethesda only using texture sets in order to change the color for them (like hair).

I ended up making a .nif for each head part like with older Bethesda game (before matswap became a thing) and now i'm curious about this F4SE function:

HeadPart[] Function GetHeadParts(bool bOverlays = false) Native

What is this bOverlys flag or overlay list referring to

The fact that the same bgsm material is loaded is probably the culprit of the morphs folder. After all, there is more than one head in the game, and each faceemotion and mfg morph somehow loads all these heads, which contain the default material, and not the head whose materials you are trying to replace. I read that it was the mfg system that prevented the authors of new bodies from replacing the vanilla head with something cut off in a more convenient place. Because you will have to redo all these dozens of heads and their morphs.base female head, this is probably just a mockup of the starting pose. The game may not have this head at all.

That's all - this is one vanilla head.

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/mc2n3-N1Oqa20g

Edited November 13, 2023 by South8028

[lee3310]

 

The fact that the same bgsm material is loaded is probably the culprit of the morphs folder. After all, there is more than one head in the game, and each faceemotion and mfg morph somehow loads all these heads, which contain the default material, and not the head whose materials you are trying to replace. I read that it was the mfg system that prevented the authors of new bodies from replacing the vanilla head with something cut off in a more convenient place. Because you will have to redo all these dozens of heads and their morphs.base female head, this is probably just a mockup of the starting pose. The game may not have this head at all.

That's all - this is one vanilla head.

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/mc2n3-N1Oqa20g

 

Interesting, All those nifs are generated by FaceGen in order to animate the face ! i have no idea how it works but it looks archaic.

Edited November 13, 2023 by lee3310

[South8028]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:41 AM, lee3310 said:

 

On 11/13/2023 at 7:19 AM, South8028 said:

The fact that the same bgsm material is loaded is probably the culprit of the morphs folder. After all, there is more than one head in the game, and each faceemotion and mfg morph somehow loads all these heads, which contain the default material, and not the head whose materials you are trying to replace. I read that it was the mfg system that prevented the authors of new bodies from replacing the vanilla head with something cut off in a more convenient place. Because you will have to redo all these dozens of heads and their morphs.base female head, this is probably just a mockup of the starting pose. The game may not have this head at all.

That's all - this is one vanilla head.

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/mc2n3-N1Oqa20g

 

Interesting, All those nifs are generated by FaceGen in order to animate the face ! i have no idea how it works but it looks archaic.

I also didnt go deep into how exactly it all works. But the impression is that all these heads are loaded, replacing each other, depending on the faceemotion. If you write in the console, for example, mfg morphs 2 10, then the head will load with its mouth open (ordinal number 2), and its slider will set the open mouth value to 10. )

It would be logical to have one head with all the emotion sliders. But something, perhaps the limitation of 4 weights per 1 vertix, did not allow bgs to do this.

Edited December 12, 2023 by South8028