Custom race not textured properly

[Sam324]

Hi everyone. I am trying to make a race mod for myself which is really just a mix of a few other mods. I wish to use the Imperial upper body meshes and textures (from Robert's male and female body mods) and the Khajiit lower body and tail meshes and textures (from the mod KATS), along with wings from another mod. I thought it would be rather simple to make in the CS, but I'm running into an issue. When I look at my new race in-game, even without the KATS/True Body Shapes stuff active, my characters (both male and female) have all Khajiit textures. I made sure the male and female upper body, etc. textures were set to the Imperial ones and the lower body ones were set to Khajiit; I'm not sure why it's applying Khajiit textures to everything. I'm pretty sure the "body suit" from True Body Shapes is set up properly (I copied the models from my Meshes folder to a new folder named after my race), but I don't think it even matters because this happens with that mod disabled. Could anyone suggest a possible reason why this might be occurring? Thanks in advance.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Robert's Male/Female Bodies, as well as just about any other body mod (minus Exnem-based ones, these use 2), does only have 1 single texture used for the entire body, the texture assigned in the 'foot' slot in the race settings.

Everything else is either compatibility nonsense for when you wear an item with a Vanilla body mesh included (which you shouldn't, as it will give you the wrong body as well while worn) or kept at Oblivion.esm defaults by not touching it at all.

You assigning the Khajiit texture to the foot slot makes the entire body use Khajiit.

 

If you want a race to have Imperial upperbody and Khajiit lowerbody, open both races' foot textures in a graphics app capable of doing so and merge them yourself to create a new fullbody texture exactly to your liking. This way you will also create far better blends at the borders of the body parts than just a simple seam where fur ends and skin starts.

I admit the normalmaps part of this could become a little more intensive... but then again, you could just simply merge the two normalmaps' upper and lower halves the exact same way as well, no need to regenerate it from the merged skin texture.

[IkeCoast]

The Robert Bodies (and indeed the HGEC-based ones) use a single texture file for all four body meshes (Upperbody, Lowerbody, Hand and Feet), instead of the separate textures for each one as in vanilla bodies. Since the textures are hardcoded into the mesh nif file, the Robert body part will always pick the texture set in the Foot path of the Race assets. If the Foot texture asset is defined to Khajiit, all the body will have Khajiit textures unregarding what the other assets (Upperbody, Lowerbody and Hand) point to.

 

You simply can't mix and match body parts and body textures like a Lego unless you set-up properly the meshes and textures previously.

 

I don't know how the KATS mod works, but I think it simply forces the digitigrade lowerbody mesh via script. In order to have the digitigrade legs and feet on non-Khajiit races, you don't set up the body and textures assets in the Race menu of CS. You need to edit the KATS script to change the race it applies to.

 

Theoretically, the same thing should be possible simply using Blockhead's Body Asset Override function, but I don't think it would work with different textures for different body parts.

 

Summarizing:

 

Try to set up your race in the CS to use the human body mesh and texture assets, then edit the KATS script to point to your race instead the Khajiit.

 

Cheers!

 

EDIT: Drake has explained how to set-up the textures prior the "merging" of the body assets in the CS. Thanks, Matey, I knew I was forgetting something.

Edited January 30, 2014 by IkeCoast

[Sam324]

Thanks for the replies :)

 

@Drake: That explains it then; I've never had experience working with normal maps so I don't think I'll attempt any texture merging right now.

 

@IkeCoast: I think I had tried this before with, as you suggest, using the "Khajiit" body type with True Body Shapes on an imperial character, but while that works fine when not wearing armor/clothing, if I remember correctly the textures on the legs revert to the default skin texture for the race if a character is wearing armor.

 

I think that I'll actually leave the race in its current state; what I was actually going for was "anthro sphinx" as a new race so I suppose since a normal sphinx has the whole body of a lion it makes sense for them to have fur on all of their bodies, not just the lower half. I'm glad I at least understand why the problem was occurring, though.

[IkeCoast]

Hey, Sam!

 

Well, if you are more or less satisfied leaving your Sphinx Race all furry, everything is OK.

 

But Drake's suggestion is a good way to solve it. When you have the time, try learning how to use GIMP and make a proper texture. Your Sphinx Race will look stunning the way you envision it.

 

Cheers!