Game Force-Changing Character's Complexion

[ElizabethLestrad]

I have recently been having trouble with custom races, where when I create my character, everything is fine. However when I save, quit, and start up again later, the character's face looks off against the rest of the body (like the character suddenly aged 50 years). I have to go in and manually move the complexion from 0 to 1 and back to get it to fix. This happens every single time. Vanilla races don't seem to do this.

 

I can provide pics if that would help troubleshoot.

[archtrtd1]

I've finally figured out how to fix the mismatched textures for my Female CustomBreton! The instructions below will work for the other Custom Races, just change out "Breton" for "Nord" and "Female" for "Male", etc.

I am using the mod Citrus Head which "overhauls the head meshes and their respective morphs to allow higher poly heads." It can be found here if you are interested: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58989/?

I've also provided steps on how to fix the FemaleHead.nif that comes with Custom Races if you are using those meshes - you will need NifSkope. Citrus Head users will need to have some familiarity with TES5Edit.

For Citrus Head users: Part 1

Even though I had copied all of the .nif and .tri files from "Citrus Head" I still had to edit my "Citrus Head" replacements.ini file to include "CustomBretonRace". The instructions on the "Citrus Head" file description page are a little vague.

1. You must extract the .bsa file in order to find the replacements.ini file located here: meshes\actors\character\facegenmorphs

2. Open the replacements.ini file in Notepad and add these lines:

CustomBretonRace = CitrusFemaleHeadBreton

CustomBretonRaceVampire = CitrusFemaleHeadBreton

Part 2 of my instructions will show you how to change the CitrusHead texture set to the correct CustomRaces texture set.

1. Load Order: move the CitrusHead - Standalone.esp to directly below the CustomRaces.esp. Create a backup of your "Citrushead - Standalone.esp in another location.

2. Open up TES5Edit, right click then "Select None". Click the boxes next to CustomRaces.esp. and CitrusHead - Standalone.esp plugins and click "OK" to load these plugins into TES5Edit.

3. Click the plus sign next to CustomRaces.esp to expand its contents. Then click the plus sign next to Texture Set.

4. Locate the "00CustomSkinHeadFemaleBreton" Editor ID. Right click it and select "Copy as Override into". A window will pop up with plugins to select from. Click the box next to "CitrusHead - Standalone.esp" and click "OK".

5. Click the plus sign next to "CitrusHead - Standalone.esp" to expand its contents.

6. Click the plus sign next to Head Part and click on "CitrusFemaleHeadBreton" to view its records.

7. Look for the "TNAM - Texture Set" row. Change "SkinHeadFemaleBreton [TXST:00051647]" to "00CustomSkinHeadFemaleBreton [TXST:xx0056E6]".

8. Click the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the TES5Edit window to close the program. A window will pop - make sure that "CitrusHead - Standalone.esp" is the only plugin listed (and has a check mark in the box next to it). Click "OK" to save changes and exit.

Basically, the problem is that the FemaleHead.nif file that comes with Custom Races is not using the correct file path for your Custom Race textures.

Here's how to fix the Custom Races FemalHead.nif:

1. Download/install NifSkope if you don't already have it.

2. Locate your CustomRaces FemaleHead.nif and create a backup copy just in case. For me it was here: \meshes\CustomRaces\CustomBreton

3. Right click on FemaleHead.nif and scroll down to "Open with". Select "nifskope".

4. In the bottom window of NifSkope click on the small triangle next to 7 BSShader TextureSet to expand its contents.

5. Then click on the small triangle next to textures to expand its contents. This is where the specific texture files are for each texture type used for the head.

6.There are four texture file paths that will need to be redirected to the CustomRaces folders:

"textures\actors\character\female\FemaleHead.dds" change to "textures\CustomRaces\CustomBreton\FemaleHead.dds"

"textures\actors\character\female\FemaleHead_msn.dds" change to "textures\CustomRaces\CustomBreton\FemaleHead_msn.dds"

"textures\actors\character\female\FemaleHead_sk.dds" and change it to ""textures\CustomRaces\CustomBreton\FemaleHead_sk.dds"

"textures\actors\character\female\FemaleHead_s.dds" and change it to ""textures\CustomRaces\CustomBreton\FemaleHead_s.dds"

7. Go to "File" and click "Save As". Use the same name and allow it to overwrite the original FemaleHead.nif file.

I hope these instructions make sense.