Neck seam in Creation Kit

[LevisageDeDior]

Hi there,

I've been doing NPC replacers for some time now. Unfortunately everytime when I set up my Character Gen Parts and switch to High Poly Head from the default one I get the neck seam in the render view I can't get rid of - and yes, it does appear ingame as well untill I manage to fix it.

So what is the problem then if I can fix it? I have no idea how I'm fixing it! I'm just going nuts in skin RGB sliders and weights and it would eventually work... however it takes me sometimes even more than 5 minutes of going crazy to get rid of it.

Right now, when I'm writing this post, I've got the neck seam I can't get rid of and I mentally gave up since I have whole Riverwood to set up...

Is there any OTHER way I can fix it? 

- And no, I can't try switching between default head and high poly one because Creation Kit crashes everytime I try to switch between them if I have already set up the HP one.

 

[scorrp10]

I frankly do not even bother with CK preview since it gives basic FaceGen, and I design NPC looks in RaceMenu, which has far more sliders and sculpt function.

I take it you use Ctrl+F4 to generate the head of an NPC in CK.   Which causes CK to place the head mesh and the tint mask files properly named and in proper locations.    When a head is exported in RaceMenu, both files are placed into Data\SKSE\Plugins\CharGen

I will give an example of handling these files.    Lets say I want to replace  Morwen  (DLC2SVMorwen, BaseID  04018FA9), who is defined in Dragonborn.esm   In the BaseID, the starting 04 is the plugin index, and 00018FA9 is ID within the plugin.   Leading zeros are important.  
The head mesh file is going to be Data\meshes\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceGeom\Dragonborn.esm\00018FA9.nif     
The tint mask file is going to be Data\textures\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceTint\Dragonborn.esm\00018FA9.dds

Thus, Serana head mesh is: 
Data\meshes\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceGeom\Dawnguard.esm\00002B6C.nif
And Lydia is:
Data\meshes\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceGeom\Skyrim.esm\000A2C8E.nif

So, I create a replacer look for Morwen in RaceMenu, and I export the head as 'Morwen_new'.   When I edit her skin tone,  I make sure to write down its RGB values (here 255, 217, 217)

Spoiler

I go to Data\SKSE\Plugins\Chargen,  rename 'Morwen_new.dds'  to 00018FA9.dds and copy it over to Data\textures\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceTint\Dragonborn.esm\
I open Morwen_new.nif in NifScope, open up properties for 00KLH_FemaleHeadNord, and in its textures, 7th slot must point at the tintmask.

Spoiler

I then rename 'Morwen_new.nif' to 00018FA9.nif and copy it to  Data\meshes\actors\character\FacegenData\FaceGeom\Dragonborn.esm\
Then, in Creation Kit, in 'Face Tinting Color' area,  enter Skin Tone RGB values from RaceMenu.

[LevisageDeDior]

Hey, thank you for your time.

However I don't create NPCs' via Creation Kit as well, but via Racemenu. The issue is that whenver I change the head to the HP one a neck seam appears in render view, and if it does then it appears ingame as well. That's the issue because it's completly out of pocket and I have no idea what is causing this, because if I get rid of it in the render view then it does not appear ingame. 

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and I have to tweak the settings for some time to make it go away.

Happy new year!

 

[scorrp10]

Is it possible that when you create a preview, it re-facegens the head?   If you use CK platform extended, it should disable auto-facegen. Have you checked if the tintmask file is getting altered and if head mesh is still pointing to a correct file?  Also, have you checked which head textures your head mesh is using?   

The components to matching head and body are:
1. body and head having skin textures from the same set.   When you select the HP head, is it possible that it gets a wrong texture set?
2.  Skin tone RGB values  when the head was exported in RaceMenu  (Alpha must be at 255) must match the skin tone in actor record in CK (interpolation slider must be at 1)
3.  Exported tint mask must be in proper location and properly named and head mesh must be pointing to it. 

 

[LevisageDeDior]

Hello,

Yes, yes, and yes. That's exactly why it's so frustrating! I'm not new to this, but recently, when I started creating entire NPC packages instead of single characters, it started bothering me more than usual.When I make just one NPC, it's whatever - it only takes me a few extra minutes to fix. But with the recent package I made for Riverwood, it took me almost an hour longer to resolve those annoying neck seam errors.

I'm using the newest fixed version of the "CK" available on Nexus, and it works great - aside from the nature of CK itself, which crashes often (haha).