A desperate cry to the veterans!!! I can't export Facegendata for putting KS Hairs on my NPC

[Memoryreboot]

I did try Ctrl+F4 and most of what reddit said,no success though .

10 hrs in on my free day and now I think maybe I'm not cut out for modding.

[Lollia]

Which game is this for, Memoryreboot? Skyrim, Fallout 4? If it's for Skyrim, I can probably help you out. I use KS hairs in my mods quite a bit. Tell me exactly what you have done and what goal you are trying to achieve.

For instance, are you attempting to export the facegen on an individual or multiple character basis? Did you choose to add the hair into your mod, and if so, did you relink and check the meshes and texture paths?

[Memoryreboot]

Thank you,my good man.

I play Skyrim.

I tried exporting Facegen only for Lydia but surprisingly,even though creation kit said exporting FACEGEN was successful,the meshes and Textures folder don't have the necessary files!!! As a result my NPC got a black face.

[Lollia]

15 hours ago, Memoryreboot said:

Thank you,my good man.

I play Skyrim.

I tried exporting Facegen only for Lydia but surprisingly,even though creation kit said exporting FACEGEN was successful,the meshes and Textures folder don't have the necessary files!!! As a result my NPC got a black face.

 

I'm a lady actually, but that's beside the point.

Okay, let's see what we have going on here. Firstly, have you tried loading the KS Hair plugin alongside your mod in the Creation Kit? Your esp must be the active file, but KS must be loaded alongside it.

[Memoryreboot]

15 hours ago, Lollia said:

 

I'm a lady actually, but that's beside the point.

Okay, let's see what we have going on here. Firstly, have you tried loading the KS Hair plugin alongside your mod in the Creation Kit? Your esp must be the active file, but KS must be loaded alongside it.

My Apologies.

Yes,I load the KS hair plugin with my esp set as the active plugin.I now realised that I can actually export Facegendata and FaceTint but somehow I end up with a black face...

I also tried following that one tutorial Anukheth Mods has on YouTube,it doesn't require a plugin but doing that , although does load the hair onto the character - who in this case is Lyida but then she looks like this faceless monster with just eyes,mouth and hair..

[Lollia]

On 12/27/2024 at 4:40 AM, Memoryreboot said:

My Apologies.

Yes,I load the KS hair plugin with my esp set as the active plugin.I now realised that I can actually export Facegendata and FaceTint but somehow I end up with a black face...

I also tried following that one tutorial Anukheth Mods has on YouTube,it doesn't require a plugin but doing that , although does load the hair onto the character - who in this case is Lyida but then she looks like this faceless monster with just eyes,mouth and hair..

 

I am sorry for the delay. We appear to be playing some form of "phone-tag". I do not wish to cause you any more grief, so what I will do is load up one of my own mods in the CK and walk you through the process step by step. I will update this post as I go.

Edit: Okay, let's begin. You have Nifskope, yes? If not, get yourself a copy because you will need it.

I'm going to show you how to tie the individual hair parts into your esp. Maybe it's overkill, but I find that it eliminates many problems in the long run. KS Hair is great for this because it has open permissions, but what I am writing will not walk you through re-directing the meshes and textures to your own custom paths, though perhaps you may wish to in the future, so bear in mind that this particular method will require you to have KS Hair as a required file.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1: Load up RaceMenu while in Skyrim and select the preset of your NPC's face. Write down the name of the hair you are using if you have not already done so.

Step 2: Exit RaceMenu and open the console. Type "SPF NPCNameOrNicknameOrWhateverYouLike" without quotations.

Step 3: Exit the game. Load up the Creation Kit (CK) with your esp as the active file, and load KS Hair alongside it.

Step 4: Type in the name of the hair style. You're going to usually end up with at least two files. One is usually the main hair, the other tends to be a hairline (HL), and will be marked as an Extra Part. Start by opening the latter and change the ID to something unique to your esp. The CK will ask if this is a new form, say yes and continue.

Step 5: Pull up the main hair file now and give it a unique ID. Now look at the Extra Parts section. One of the entries should look very familiar to you, because it's the original hairline file. Right-click and say New, then find your custom ID for the hairline part. Select it and it will be added to the Extra Parts box. Right-click on the original hairline entry in the Extra Parts box and click Delete.

Depending on the hair, you may have additional listings in the Extra Parts box, such as  0_Hairline_Female_Human_Straight, for example. Locate that very file in the CK and give it a new name so it becomes a new form. Now pull up your custom version of the main hair again and link to the 0_Hairline file through the Extra Parts box. Once that's done, delete the original 0_Hairline entry from the Extra Parts box.

Step 6: Your custom hair should now be linked up!  It's time to navigate to your NPC listing in the Actor section. Once there, go to the Character Gen Parts tab.

Step 7: Click on Import. Remember when you used the SPF command in Skyrim earlier? This is where that comes in. You should see an .NPC file listed with the ID you gave it. This will pull in the character you created with their weight (note: having the same weight in the CK model and the in-game one is important for avoiding the black-face bug) and (some) of their facial attributes in tact.

Step 8: Double-check any face details (such as scars or aging effects). Now find the custom hair by using the drop-down menu and select it. If you have the Head loaded in the preview window, your character may appear bald with the hair mesh floating far above them. This is normal, so do not worry about it. Now hit OK and have the CK export the face data again.

Step 9: Now you are going to be opening up three separate file paths.

Data\meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom

Data\textures\Actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint

Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen

The first two paths should contain a folder with the name of your esp. Start with the mesh folder and find your NPC's head mesh (if the NPC is from the vanilla game or DLCs, their head mesh will be in the appropriate game folder).

Now... Uh, oh. Fudge muffins! I knew I forgot to ask you something important!

Which version of Skyrim are you on? If you're on Legendary Edition this will be much easier, but I can still help you if you're on SE or higher.

No matter. Okay, we're going to split into 2 paths now. LE vs SE/AE.

---------------------------------------------------------------

LE Path

1: Make a copy of the head mesh the CK created and put it in a safe folder. Now find the head mesh you made and exported with RaceMenu in Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen and place it in the same folder as the head mesh the CK made.

Your new best friend is called NPC Nif Merge and you will be able to work wonders together. Once you have it comfortably placed on your computer, start it up.

2: In your Data\meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom, drag the CK-made head mesh into the Target NPC Face Model sector (right side), now drag your RaceMenu-created head mesh over to the Source NPC Face Model sector (left side). You may get a warning that things won't match up, but clicking on Match By Vertex seems to offset any problems. Click it once and ignore the warning if it's still there. (You have backups, remember.)

3: Now select Merge To Target (it MUST be this option or it will not work properly).

Your head mesh has been merged and the game will be able to read it. But there's still some work to do.

4: Open up your newly merged head and check it out. If the hair colour looks off, then you need to open up your original RaceMenu-created head mesh alongside and compare and adjust the the colours under the BSLightingShaderProperty nodes. Be aware that this (depending on what you click on) can affect other things such as skin and eyebrows, so make a backup of your merged head mesh before you go changing the colours around.

5: Next, head over Data\textures\Actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint and find your NPC's face tint. The CK one will be hideous, but do not discard it just yet. Write down the ID it has and pitch it. Copy over the RaceMenu one you created and place it within the folder, then rename it to the ID you wrote down. (Check your file sizes--if the file is large, consider editing it to be smaller to help avoid face colouration bugs.) If put the ID in correctly, your merged head mesh should be read the facetint file properly.

 You're done! Load up the game and see how it all looks.

---------------------------------------------------------------

SE/AE Path

Note: The following can actually be used to optimize a head mesh from the LE version over to SE/AE. Very nifty.

Warning: The following was first written in concern about a broken eye mesh through the conversion process and how to fix it. If you know what your custom mesh is supposed to look like, then you will be able to read between the lines and figure out which bits of the CK-exported head mesh (in its pure CK-exported form) need to be edited within Nifskope.

Personal Note: Reading the steps below has made me once again very glad to be an LE player/creator.

1: Make a copy of the head mesh the CK created and put it in a safe folder. Now find the head mesh you made and exported with RaceMenu in Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen and place it in the same folder as the head mesh the CK made.

2: Open up the SSE version of the FemaleEyes.nif (or the MaleEyes.nif if the problem happens to occur with the men) in NifSkope. Those files are are found in Data\Meshes\Actors\Character\character assets. You might need to extract them from their original BSA files. [Note: You can also use an SSE appropriate eye mesh replacer like the AO Eye Clipping Fix found on the Nexus.]

3: Looking at the eye mesh, right-click on NiSkinPartition in the Block List and hover over Block. Choose Copy.

4: Open up another instance of Nifskope and locate your converted head mesh.

5: Click on your characters eyes in the model view. BSDynamicTriShape should be highlighted.

6: Right-click on the NiSkinPartition below the highlighted BSDynamicTriShape in the Block List.

7: Hover over Block and choose Paste Over.

Ta-da! The eyes are now fixed! No re-sculpt needed.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I hope this all makes sense to you, I really do. I feel tired and overwhelmed just by reading it, and I actually went through it successfully.

Edit 2: If I had to make a guess about the notes about the eyes, what you will be attempting to do in the SE/AE path is comparing your RaceMenu Mesh to the pure CK-exported one. You will be combing through both meshes in NifSkope and making the values listed in sectors like the NiSkinPartition and such match up with your RaceMenu-created mesh. All edits must be made to the CK-created mesh in order to work within the game.

Be it LE or SE/AE, bear in mind that the face changes will not show up in the CK when you try to preview them. If you accidentally export the face again, you will have to redo your changes. And whatever you do, do not mess with the weight of the NPC after everything is done, or you might be back to the very beginning. If you end up with mods editing the same NPCs and someone complains about a face colouration bug, check to see if the weight has been changed from its original value in either mod.

I wish you the best of luck. It's a lot of trial and error, even when you happen to have some understanding of Nifskope.

[Memoryreboot]

8 hours ago, Lollia said:

 

I am sorry for the delay. We appear to be playing some form of "phone-tag". I do not wish to cause you any more grief, so what I will do is load up one of my own mods in the CK and walk you through the process step by step. I will update this post as I go.

Edit: Okay, let's begin. You have Nifskope, yes? If not, get yourself a copy because you will need it.

I'm going to show you how to tie the individual hair parts into your esp. Maybe it's overkill, but I find that it eliminates many problems in the long run. KS Hair is great for this because it has open permissions, but what I am writing will not walk you through re-directing the meshes and textures to your own custom paths, though perhaps you may wish to in the future, so bear in mind that this particular method will require you to have KS Hair as a required file.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1: Load up RaceMenu while in Skyrim and select the preset of your NPC's face. Write down the name of the hair you are using if you have not already done so.

Step 2: Exit RaceMenu and open the console. Type "SPF NPCNameOrNicknameOrWhateverYouLike" without quotations.

Step 3: Exit the game. Load up the Creation Kit (CK) with your esp as the active file, and load KS Hair alongside it.

Step 4: Type in the name of the hair style. You're going to usually end up with at least two files. One is usually the main hair, the other tends to be a hairline (HL), and will be marked as an Extra Part. Start by opening the latter and change the ID to something unique to your esp. The CK will ask if this is a new form, say yes and continue.

Step 5: Pull up the main hair file now and give it a unique ID. Now look at the Extra Parts section. One of the entries should look very familiar to you, because it's the original hairline file. Right-click and say New, then find your custom ID for the hairline part. Select it and it will be added to the Extra Parts box. Right-click on the original hairline entry in the Extra Parts box and click Delete.

Depending on the hair, you may have additional listings in the Extra Parts box, such as  0_Hairline_Female_Human_Straight, for example. Locate that very file in the CK and give it a new name so it becomes a new form. Now pull up your custom version of the main hair again and link to the 0_Hairline file through the Extra Parts box. Once that's done, delete the original 0_Hairline entry from the Extra Parts box.

Step 6: Your custom hair should now be linked up!  It's time to navigate to your NPC listing in the Actor section. Once there, go to the Character Gen Parts tab.

Step 7: Click on Import. Remember when you used the SPF command in Skyrim earlier? This is where that comes in. You should see an .NPC file listed with the ID you gave it. This will pull in the character you created with their weight (note: having the same weight in the CK model and the in-game one is important for avoiding the black-face bug) and (some) of their facial attributes in tact.

Step 8: Double-check any face details (such as scars or aging effects). Now find the custom hair by using the drop-down menu and select it. If you have the Head loaded in the preview window, your character may appear bald with the hair mesh floating far above them. This is normal, so do not worry about it. Now hit OK and have the CK export the face data again.

Step 9: Now you are going to be opening up three separate file paths.

Data\meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom

Data\textures\Actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint

Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen

The first two paths should contain a folder with the name of your esp. Start with the mesh folder and find your NPC's head mesh (if the NPC is from the vanilla game or DLCs, their head mesh will be in the appropriate game folder).

Now... Uh, oh. Fudge muffins! I knew I forgot to ask you something important!

Which version of Skyrim are you on? If you're on Legendary Edition this will be much easier, but I can still help you if you're on SE or higher.

No matter. Okay, we're going to split into 2 paths now. LE vs SE/AE.

---------------------------------------------------------------

LE Path

1: Make a copy of the head mesh the CK created and put it in a safe folder. Now find the head mesh you made and exported with RaceMenu in Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen and place it in the same folder as the head mesh the CK made.

Your new best friend is called NPC Nif Merge and you will be able to work wonders together. Once you have it comfortably placed on your computer, start it up.

2: In your Data\meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom, drag the CK-made head mesh into the Target NPC Face Model sector (right side), now drag your RaceMenu-created head mesh over to the Source NPC Face Model sector (left side). You may get a warning that things won't match up, but clicking on Match By Vertex seems to offset any problems. Click it once and ignore the warning if it's still there. (You have backups, remember.)

3: Now select Merge To Target (it MUST be this option or it will not work properly).

Your head mesh has been merged and the game will be able to read it. But there's still some work to do.

4: Open up your newly merged head and check it out. If the hair colour looks off, then you need to open up your original RaceMenu-created head mesh alongside and compare and adjust the the colours under the BSLightingShaderProperty nodes. Be aware that this (depending on what you click on) can affect other things such as skin and eyebrows, so make a backup of your merged head mesh before you go changing the colours around.

5: Next, head over Data\textures\Actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint and find your NPC's face tint. The CK one will be hideous, but do not discard it just yet. Write down the ID it has and pitch it. Copy over the RaceMenu one you created and place it within the folder, then rename it to the ID you wrote down. (Check your file sizes--if the file is large, consider editing it to be smaller to help avoid face colouration bugs.) If put the ID in correctly, your merged head mesh should be read the facetint file properly.

 You're done! Load up the game and see how it all looks.

---------------------------------------------------------------

SE/AE Path

Note: The following can actually be used to optimize a head mesh from the LE version over to SE/AE. Very nifty.

Warning: The following was first written in concern about a broken eye mesh through the conversion process and how to fix it. If you know what your custom mesh is supposed to look like, then you will be able to read between the lines and figure out which bits of the CK-exported head mesh (in its pure CK-exported form) need to be edited within Nifskope.

Personal Note: Reading the steps below has made me once again very glad to be an LE player/creator.

1: Make a copy of the head mesh the CK created and put it in a safe folder. Now find the head mesh you made and exported with RaceMenu in Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen and place it in the same folder as the head mesh the CK made.

2: Open up the SSE version of the FemaleEyes.nif (or the MaleEyes.nif if the problem happens to occur with the men) in NifSkope. Those files are are found in Data\Meshes\Actors\Character\character assets. You might need to extract them from their original BSA files. [Note: You can also use an SSE appropriate eye mesh replacer like the AO Eye Clipping Fix found on the Nexus.]

3: Looking at the eye mesh, right-click on NiSkinPartition in the Block List and hover over Block. Choose Copy.

4: Open up another instance of Nifskope and locate your converted head mesh.

5: Click on your characters eyes in the model view. BSDynamicTriShape should be highlighted.

6: Right-click on the NiSkinPartition below the highlighted BSDynamicTriShape in the Block List.

7: Hover over Block and choose Paste Over.

Ta-da! The eyes are now fixed! No re-sculpt needed.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I hope this all makes sense to you, I really do. I feel tired and overwhelmed just by reading it, and I actually went through it successfully.

Edit 2: If I had to make a guess about the notes about the eyes, what you will be attempting to do in the SE/AE path is comparing your RaceMenu Mesh to the pure CK-exported one. You will be combing through both meshes in NifSkope and making the values listed in sectors like the NiSkinPartition and such match up with your RaceMenu-created mesh. All edits must be made to the CK-created mesh in order to work within the game.

Be it LE or SE/AE, bear in mind that the face changes will not show up in the CK when you try to preview them. If you accidentally export the face again, you will have to redo your changes. And whatever you do, do not mess with the weight of the NPC after everything is done, or you might be back to the very beginning. If you end up with mods editing the same NPCs and someone complains about a face colouration bug, check to see if the weight has been changed from its original value in either mod.

I wish you the best of luck. It's a lot of trial and error, even when you happen to have some understanding of Nifskope.

Thanks like...a lot.

So much detail,I managed to make it work .

[Lollia]

On 12/28/2024 at 11:00 AM, Memoryreboot said:

Thanks like...a lot.

So much detail,I managed to make it work .

 

I am very glad to hear that! I had been fretting over certain details and it was all I could do to stop myself from flying back to revise it.