Resource for creating vanilla facegen sliders for custom races?

[sonicbrawler182]

I am creating a custom race mod (with a completely custom model, not based on a existing Skyrim race model) and I am aiming to support all of the features of the vanilla races and their various sliders (i.e without the RaceMenu mod). The next major thing I really need to do is the facegen sliders for things like "chin length, nose height", etc. However, I am struggling to find info on how to create these.

I already have a generally good understanding of .nifs and .tris and how they factor into the process of creating custom models and so on. I've already done the expression morphs for my custom race. I can't really find any info on how the vanilla facegen sliders work though, as searching for it keeps turning up info about using the RaceMenu mod to create face presets and the like.

I do generally understand that I will need to make one or more .tri files containing the morph data, but I don't know how the vanilla sliders are set up for this. Do I need to make a .tri file for each slider, are they contained in one .tri file with multiple sliders, how the sliders should be named, etc.

If anyone has any knowledge on this, or can point me towards some relevant documentation, that would be much appreciated.

[scorrp10]

Not sure if you have seen this guide

About the general system of this:  if you look at 'FemaleHeadNord'   HeadPart, it lists:
Mesh name (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHead.nif) - that is the base mesh that is actually shared by all humanoid female races.
Tri (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHead.tri) - this is the file that contains all the phonemes and expressions morphs, needed for in-game face animation.
Race Morph (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadRaces.tri) - this file contains a morph for every race that uses the humanoid head mesh.
Chargen Morph (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadCharGen.tri) - this contains the morphs for the chargen sliders.  

If you look at FemaleHeadOrc or FemaleHeadHighElf, you will see that they use exactly the same model and same .tri files. as Nord.

Now, to see something more applicable to your situation, you should look at, say, FemaleHeadKhajiit. 
It uses its own model (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadKhajiit.nif),
And its own Tri and Chargen Morph files (Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadKhajiit.tri and Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadKhajiitChargen.tri)

However, you will notice that it does not have a Race Morph file.    That is because this model serves only one race - Khajiit - and is already in that race shape.

Now, if you load up either  Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadCharGen.tri or Actors\Character\Character Assets\FemaleHeadKhajiitChargen.tri   (both found in 'Skyrim - Meshes0.bsa'), you should see that they have morphs defined  you would find in the vanilla racemenu - as well as on the Character Gen Morphs tab of Actor record in CK.   So, if you want to just have vanilla facegen for your custom race, you basically create a chargen tri  defining same exact morphs as other vanilla chargen .tri's.

Now, if you look into the .bsa that comes with RaceMenu, you will see that it contains a LOT of its own .tri files under actors\character\facegenmorphs, and those only come into play when editing  character looks in RaceMenu.   So if you want your custom race to have same level of customization, you would need to see what RaceMenu includes for, say, Khajiit, and basically replicate that.

 

[sonicbrawler182]

I remember seeing that guide before a few months ago but couldn't quite find it again, thank you!

I think I understand what I have to, the process looks very much the same as making the expression morphs I already did, I just need to put them into a chargen file and with the correct slider names for the chargen morphs and it should work.

I'll post again if I'm having trouble or make good progress.