Change follower eyes and give moles to her face?

[mushirdc]

how to change follower eye colors and add moles to her face? I've been trying to change this manula by replacing texture files as well as using Nifmerge but it never properly works

[scorrp10]

For eyes:   You basically need to locate the follower head mesh somewhere under Data\meshes\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom,  open it using NifScope, expand the eye mesh portion, and change the first (diffuse) texture in its texture set.    
To find out which texture to use, you could go into Racemenu (showracemenu console command), use Eye Color slider to find the eyes you want, and then use 'Export Head' function on the Sculpt tab.   The exported head will be in data\SKSE\Plugins\Chargen.  You open it in nifscope, expand the eyes mesh, and check its first texture.

Spoiler

 

 

[scorrp10]

For moles...   You really need some sort of image editor that can work with textures.   I use Adobe Photoshop with Nvidia Texture Tool Plugin

make sure you got a mod installed that adds moles (such as SFO) you go into Racemenu, Makeup tab, choose a slot, set its color to fully opaque black, then use T to choose texture, select the mole you want.   Repeat till you got the moles you want.    Go to Sculpt tab, export head.   You should get the tintmask texture in data\skse\plugins\chargen.    Now locate the follower tintmask texture in data\textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\[modname].esp\   You basically want to to get the texture with moles as a layer on top of existing follower tint mask, and then delete everything but the moles, then merge and save.

 

[mushirdc]

On 8/6/2024 at 10:54 PM, scorrp10 said:

For eyes:   You basically need to locate the follower head mesh somewhere under Data\meshes\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom,  open it using NifScope, expand the eye mesh portion, and change the first (diffuse) texture in its texture set.    
To find out which texture to use, you could go into Racemenu (showracemenu console command), use Eye Color slider to find the eyes you want, and then use 'Export Head' function on the Sculpt tab.   The exported head will be in data\SKSE\Plugins\Chargen.  You open it in nifscope, expand the eyes mesh, and check its first texture.

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Ah thank you I'll try doing from this method, but is it possible to change the eye itself? like from mods like 'Eyes of beauty' and 'Natural eyes'?

[scorrp10]

For an existing follower mod with an already generated head?   No.    Mods like Eyes of Beauty provide eye head parts for use in Racemenu.    And the Eye Color slider there actually chooses which of those eye head parts you are going to use.   However, once the head is exported, paths to various textures are 'baked' into the head mesh itself.    Typically, mod author will copy the textures being used into the folder specific to that follower, and will alter the texture paths in the head mesh.    Unless follower uses one of vanilla eye textures. 

For example, lets say I am using Bijin Warmaidens mod, and  I want to change eye color on Jordis.   (Base ID 000A2C8F)   I open Data\meshes\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom\skyrim.esm\000A2C8F.nif  in NifScope, expand the eyes part, and see that  for diffuse, it uses:   actors\character\Jordis\eyes\eyebluesmoke.dds  So, I go to data\textures\actors\character\Jordis\eyes\ and replace eyebluesmoke.dds with some other texture.   Or, I copy the new texture in, and edit the .nif file to point to it instead.

 

 

 

[mushirdc]

On 8/8/2024 at 6:42 PM, scorrp10 said:

For an existing follower mod with an already generated head?   No.    Mods like Eyes of Beauty provide eye head parts for use in Racemenu.    And the Eye Color slider there actually chooses which of those eye head parts you are going to use.   However, once the head is exported, paths to various textures are 'baked' into the head mesh itself.    Typically, mod author will copy the textures being used into the folder specific to that follower, and will alter the texture paths in the head mesh.    Unless follower uses one of vanilla eye textures. 

For example, lets say I am using Bijin Warmaidens mod, and  I want to change eye color on Jordis.   (Base ID 000A2C8F)   I open Data\meshes\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom\skyrim.esm\000A2C8F.nif  in NifScope, expand the eyes part, and see that  for diffuse, it uses:   actors\character\Jordis\eyes\eyebluesmoke.dds  So, I go to data\textures\actors\character\Jordis\eyes\ and replace eyebluesmoke.dds with some other texture.   Or, I copy the new texture in, and edit the .nif file to point to it instead.

 

 

 

Thank you sooo much  for this help, I got the eye change working now through Nifskope. Now all I need is to get the moles texture working through the method you defined.

[scorrp10]

Case in point:    I have a mod replacing Hearthfire bards, specifically Llewellyn (03018DE0) is now Myfanwy, looking like this

Her tintmask (Data\textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\Hearthfires.esm\03018DE0.dds) looks like this:

I start game, go into racemenu, load a random female preset, and give her a few moles:

Then, I export her head under name "Moles"
Now, I have:  Data\SKSE\Plugins\Chargen\Moles.dds

I layer it in Photoshop over Myfanwy's facetint, and mask out everything except for moles, merge and save it.

Run the game again, and VOILA!

 

 

[mushirdc]

On 8/9/2024 at 10:20 PM, scorrp10 said:

Case in point:    I have a mod replacing Hearthfire bards, specifically Llewellyn (03018DE0) is now Myfanwy, looking like this

Her tintmask (Data\textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\Hearthfires.esm\03018DE0.dds) looks like this:

I start game, go into racemenu, load a random female preset, and give her a few moles:

Then, I export her head under name "Moles"
Now, I have:  Data\SKSE\Plugins\Chargen\Moles.dds

I layer it in Photoshop over Myfanwy's facetint, and mask out everything except for moles, merge and save it.

Run the game again, and VOILA!

 

 

I'll try this way exporting! thanks

however I'm facing another problem, I try to change the hair of my follower through Nifskope but it doesn't work. I tried by the method of Mifmerge but the previous hair of the npc still remains in fact even after I changed the hair

 

[mushirdc]

There's another eye issue with one of my followers from this mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/93650?tab=description

I downloaded the one called 'Paola' and tried to change her eyes but apparently she has a texture called 'blind' which doesn't seem to change when ever I change the eyes

[scorrp10]

Hair is a complex thing.    Lets say you want to replace hair on Paola.    Opening her head mesh nif, one can see the there are 3 "hair" parts:
0_hairPaola
0_HairlinePaola
0_hairlinePaolatwo - this one is a scalp.   

I click on each of these parts, and press Ctrl+Del to remove them completely.

Going into Racemenu, set sex/race same as Paola, and then use Hair slider to choose the hair you want, and set it to the color you want.    Lets say we selected "Drowsy" from KS Hairdos.    Go into sculpt, export the head, with name "Drowsy".    Open exported head .nif in NifScope, you will see that it has:
0Drowsy   (the main hair part)
0DrowsyHL  (the hairline part)
0_HAIRLINE_Female_Human_Straight   (scalp)

I click on main Hair part, Ctrl+C to copy it.   Then in the window where I have Paola's head, I click on 'BSFaceGenNiNodeskinned'   ( the parent node for all the head parts)  and Ctrl+V - this pastes the hair part under it.
Now, I click on the hair mesh I just pasted, in the properties below, there is "Name",  I right-click it, and choose "Edit String Index", from available choices, select "0_hairPaola"

From Drowsy, I copy-paste the 0DrowsyHL  part, get it renamed to 0_HairlinePaola.    Then copy-paste the scalp part and rename it to 0_hairlinePaolatwo.   Finally, go to Spells menu, Optimize - Remove Unused Strings.    Save and Close.

A few thoughts:  Most head meshes will only have NPC Head and NPC Spine2 bones (as is the case with Paola).     But if you choose a replacement hair that is real long, it might have extra bones, such as Clavicles or NPC Spine1.    If it does, you need to copy-paste those extra bones under the root structure of the target mesh before copying the hair parts.