Black Faces texture trouble.

[JinixElder]

Last night I ran into a major problem when some of my NPCs had black, textureless faces and ears.

It took me ages to finally track down and fix the problem.

But a question remains that has me baffled...

 

To change a texture on a human face:

Imperial nif and any old texure/image for a face sometimes it works but...

most of the time I get just a black face and ears.

Even tho' size, path.etc., is correct.

 

Question: If all the nifs of my races faces are imperial can you just use ANY texture image to overlay the face part nif.?

I have done it with success a few times for instance just to see I overlaid a book texture and it lit up the face great, but when I put an exact sized carefully crafted face image I get black-no texture?

 

I 'll work some more on this but maybe I have too many homemade races - 14 so far.

 

 

[IkeCoast]

Black faces are not a texture (colormap) issue, are a lack of a proper normalmap for that texture. If your new texture is named differently than the vanilla one you are replacing, then the game engine doesn't find the corresponding normalmap, the file that thells "him" how the surface reacts to light. Since no normalmap is present, the face does not reflect light at all and appears pitch black.

 

A quick glossary of texture-related issues:

 

Surfaces (face, bodies, everything) appear a uniform and featureless shade of pink (sometimes blue): the colormap is not present, but the normalmap is.

Surfaces are pitch-black: the colormap is present, but not the normalmap.

Surfaces are invisible: neither the colormap nor the normalmap are present.

The object is replaced with a big yellow triangle with an exclamation mark on it: this is not a texture problem, this means that the 3D mesh is not present.

 

Another consideration: when changing the texture path inside the nif file, remember always to use a relative path, not an absolute path. The correct texture path must start with the Textures sub-folder, not the Data folder nor the C:Program Files, for instance.

 

Cheers!

[DrakeTheDragon]

Adding to that, in case of "skin" textures especially there comes yet an additional trouble into the mix.

 

While there is only 1 set of body part NIFs for all races and not necessarily more than 1 head either (multiple races "can" be set up to use the same head NIF in the CS, but it's not a must),

every "race" of course has its very own distinct skin textures for body and head, although using the exact same NIF files as others!

 

This is achieved by an engine-internal, obscured mechanism, which I only stumbled across by accident.

 

In order for a mesh inside a NIF to function as skin and automatically use the texture of the race "wearing" the NIF (body parts and all else is just "worn" as well in fact) and to change in tint and coloration along with the sliders set in CharGen,

the NiMaterial of the NiTriShape/Strips needs to be "skin" (upper-/lowercase doesn't matter) and the "name" of the NiTriShape/Strips node needs to start with one of the following hard-coded keywords:

 

"upperbody"/"arms", "lowerbody"/("legs"), "hand", "foot", and there's also "tail" but I couldn't make out this part of the formula working correctly in my tests so far (again upper-/lowercase doesn't matter)

 

Then there's also the ":" character which serves as a "remark" indicator, so names like "foot:body" or "foot:hands" aren't uncommon in the days of body mods, both marking the mesh to use the "foot" texture of the race for the engine, and telling any onlookers what part of the body it actually is meant to be, without confusing the engine along the way.

 

The trouble relevant to the topic comes with the fact that this indeed makes the game engine "ignore" any and all NiTexture properties you set up inside the NIF file itself, so forget about changing the skin texture of a body part "inside the NIF file" altogether, it won't have the desired effect.

BUT, and that's a big "but", the game engine still looks for the files set up inside the NIF when validating the NIFs structure and setup, so if there's a skin texture set up inside the NIF which doesn't exist, you will STILL get a "missing texture" (purple mesh), or in some cases even the "missing normalmap" (pitch-black or invisible) will prevail, error indicator ingame, although you will NEVER see it use the texture set up inside the NIF!

That's why usually ALL body part NIFs are set up to use Imperial skin textures, as those are almost-guaranteed to be present in everybody's game by default.

 

I could not yet figure out exactly what are the keywords and hard-coded mechanisms in regards to the heads, as those don't use "skin" but a different material, and sometimes not even the same for all heads...

...but as you still set up the head textures and head NIFs on a per-race basis and independent of each other inside the Construction Set, you can almost bet your life on it being the same or similar in this regard. What you set up inside the head NIF will be ignored and the texture set up for the race used instead, but if you set up a texture that is missing inside the NIF, there you go, error indicator shows up ingame!

 

So double check not only the textures set up in the race records in the plugins are all present together with their normalmaps and everything, but also make sure the textures you set up inside the individual NIFs and their normalmaps are all present as well! They will never be "used" by the game, but the game will complain when they're "missing"!

[JinixElder]

Fantastic help! Thank you both!

I have copied these answers to a text file and I'm going to see what I can do now --- I'll let you know if I can find success with my blackies now....

[Striker879]

Ahh ... we have another "Drakes_Tips.txt"er. I'm going to rename mine "Drakes_and_Ikes_Tips.txt".

[IkeCoast]

I should do the same, actually, Striker, put down in a text file all what I have learned (and adding Drake's lore too, I did not know about the ":" modifier).

 

And lately I have been thinking about writing a book for the wiki about proper installation and setting-up of OCO v2. Pulitzer Prize, here we go...

 

Cheers!

[Striker879]

Oh noo ... I should have known better.

 

"And visions of grandeur danced in his head".

 

So you think we just link to the wiki instead of hand holding, cajoling and occasionally scolding?

[JinixElder]

Thank you for your help I can now easily change the texture face of all the races especially my own races, without black faces - I also have been able to change the ear textures too - BUT...

I am having enormous problems with body textures even 'tho I have used normal maps. I did succeed with one race but cannot reproduce what I did... are there more texture conditions for bodies? When I change clothing textures I get a warning that it needs to have biped slots selected in the editor. But it all apears to be correctly chosen?

 

I have not stopped modding my races since starting this post. .. it's amazing what else I have accomplished 'tho.

I cannot think of a better way to spend my senior years than working on my mod. My mod which I have worked on since TESCS was released - yep! same mod - thousands of hours of my time... I'll drop dead of old age in front of this computer and no-one will ever see it, let alone play it... but I cannot stop or I'll croak from boredom.

[IkeCoast]

What kind of enormous issues are you experiencing with body textures? If needed, don't hesitate to post here a pic showing the issue. Bodies have the same texture requirements as faces: colormap, normalmap are mandatory, glowmaps and other maps are optional. However, the game applies the textures to the bodies in a different way than the faces. We'll discuss this when we know your issues with bodies.

 

About the "changing clothing textures and getting a warning that it needs to have biped slots selected in the editor", I'm afraid I don't follow you. You can't change clothing textures in the Construction Set. The "biped model" filepath buttons are for assigning meshes, not textures. Textures must be changed using NIfSkope.

 

I understand you about spending hours and hours with a mod that nobody else will ever see, neither play. The mods of mine hosted here at the Nexus are just a tiny part of all the mods I have worked on since I discovered Oblivion.

 

/me hugs JinixElder

 

Cheers!

[JinixElder]

Thanks for replying IkeCoast,...

I'll explain the "enormous issues' later...

 

The 'bipod' bit is like this...

I can easiely change textures in Nifskope, but the problem occurs after I have saved it and then get the error about bipod when the CS loads them.

Can you give me a simple step by step to make a shirt red instead of green using a lower shirt as an example?

Such as load shirt in Nifskope, change texture, save, open up CS without error message., apply to NPC and view with game.

I about to try the maps using gimp.. I'll post my results after....