Modding Races

[LiquidParadox]

Keep in mind that I'm a total modding noob, and really have almost no idea what I am doing. Also, keep in mind that I have searched for a solution to this problem, but lack the patience to search through pages and pages of results.

 

So, I am trying to mod a race for my own personal use, by changing the body textures from imperial to woodelf. Problem is, in the cs, when I click the upperbody button on the body data tab, all I can find are foot textures. I'm probably just doing something stupid, but any help would be appreciated.

[LFact]

Body meshes are universal. It means, if you replace female body shape A to B, all women will use replaced body meshes.

[LiquidParadox]

Body meshes are universal. It means, if you replace female body shape A to B, all women will use replaced body meshes.

 

Right, sorry. I mean't to say textures, not meshes

[LFact]

About textures, most of major body replacers use foot texture to wrap around whole body, so you can see seamless body skin(not face). If you wonder, just open foot texture provided with body replacer with any viewer that supports .dds file.

 

**About vanilla body textures, they're packed within .BSA files, so you can't mess with them by installing any mod.

[Tomlong54210]

If you are talking about footfemale.dds or footmale.dds, those are the full body textures. Shouldn't you be looking at the textures in an editing program, such as GIMP or Photoshop?

[LiquidParadox]

If you are talking about footfemale.dds or footmale.dds, those are the full body textures. Shouldn't you be looking at the textures in an editing program, such as GIMP or Photoshop?

 

haha, well, I'm not trying to change the textures themselves, just replace the default imperial body textures with woodelf textures. If the footmale.dds is a full body texture, do I change all the textures to footmale/footfemale textures? I.E

upperbody: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

lowerbody: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

hand: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

Foot: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

 

Or do I only need to change the foot?

[Tomlong54210]

If you are talking about footfemale.dds or footmale.dds, those are the full body textures. Shouldn't you be looking at the textures in an editing program, such as GIMP or Photoshop?

 

haha, well, I'm not trying to change the textures themselves, just replace the default imperial body textures with woodelf textures. If the footmale.dds is a full body texture, do I change all the textures to footmale/footfemale textures? I.E

upperbody: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

lowerbody: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

hand: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

Foot: Characters/woodelf/male/footmale.dds

 

Or do I only need to change the foot?

No. The easiest way to do this since you are just swapping texture paths is to do this with TES4Edit. That way you can just copy the file paths from the WoodElf record over into the Imperial record. It will be much easier to see everything (and not make mistakes.) I think only foot has to be "footmale.dds." There are separate textures for everything else. You could see all of this in TES4Edit very easily. TESCS clears the path entry when you click on the button, which I find very aggravating...

[Toddemix]

As a note, Woodelves use the Imperial body textures already. Maybe you knew that, and your example was hypothetical, or maybe you use a mod like Fantasy Figures that gives each race their own textures, but just in case, I thought I'd clarify.

 

I don't use the CS or TES4Edit when I'm experimenting with body textures- for me the easiest way is to navigate to my textures/characters/Imperial folder, r-click and drag on it and make a backup copy of that folder on my desktop. Then I rename the new texture files (to footfemale.dds and _n.dds) if necessary, and drop them in the textures/characters/Imperial folder, saying yes to overwrite, Load up my game, check out the textures, and if I don't like them, I just replace the folder with the backup I made. Does that make sense?

 

As long as you back up your old textures, there isn't anything to lose. Later on when you're more comfortable, it is pretty easy to set up each race to use their own textures, for greater individuality amongst the races.

[Tomlong54210]

As a note, Woodelves use the Imperial body textures already. Maybe you knew that, and your example was hypothetical, or maybe you use a mod like Fantasy Figures that gives each race their own textures, but just in case, I thought I'd clarify.

 

I don't use the CS or TES4Edit when I'm experimenting with body textures- for me the easiest way is to navigate to my textures/characters/Imperial folder, r-click and drag on it and make a backup copy of that folder on my desktop. Then I rename the new texture files (to footfemale.dds and _n.dds) if necessary, and drop them in the textures/characters/Imperial folder, saying yes to overwrite, Load up my game, check out the textures, and if I don't like them, I just replace the folder with the backup I made. Does that make sense?

 

As long as you back up your old textures, there isn't anything to lose. Later on when you're more comfortable, it is pretty easy to set up each race to use their own textures, for greater individuality amongst the races.

I can't believe I just did that... Thanks for stepping in before I made an even bigger fool of myself...

[Toddemix]

No harm done. You made a reasonable assumption that the different races use different textures, and I don't fault you for it, Tomlong. Nope, the Imperial texture is used by almost all of the humanoid races, yes, even Redguards. Only Dunmer, Orcs, Argonians and Khajiit have their own texture folders, unless you use a mod that gives them to the other races. Robert's Male does that, and so does Fantasy Figures. And Luchaire's Better Redguards assigns a unique and appropriate texture for Redguards so they aren't ashen/green anymore. Wonderful stuff.