Mass Effect 3 Hair textures won't apply

[ElysiumFic]

Okay, I'm not any sort of expert at modding, but I do know how to RTFM so I've looked for ways to solve this problem myself and nothing has worked. I can't find a solution anywhere.

 

I'm trying to apply hair textures. I've tried some of the ones from here: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/387/? and also a few from here: http://nerdykani.blogspot.ru/2013/09/me3-hair5.html

 

I prefer the second one, because it uses Custom Cute instead of Allers' hair, so I don't have to look at a messed-up Allers every time I go to talk to her.

 

I will say that early in my playthrough, a couple mods (Sky097 and Synthesis from girlplaysgames, so they used Allers hair) seemed to work for me. I just eventually decided that Shep was too distressed and exhausted to look so polished and went for more disheveled styles in the late game.

 

Problem is, they aren't working.

 

Here is what it's supposed to look like:

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-okcrBafJJ94/UjIAgL2HFgI/AAAAAAAAAgg/sY_8F94Qm90/s640/MassEffect3+2013-09-12+21-42-21-71.jpg

 

Here is what I get instead:

 

http://i.imgur.com/3QyYTJV.jpg?1

 

SInce that looks just like the mesh when I check it out in Meshplorer, I'm going to assume the problem is the textures not being applied.

 

Here's what I've tried:

1. I HAVE followed the tutorials carefully and read GirlPlaysGames Troubleshooting Guide particularly the portion about the mesh being there but the textures not.
2. I have tried vanilla-ing all my files (with the exception of going back to the unscanned DLC files) I suppose maybe it could be something in one of the DLCs but I don't think so. I HAVE edited my savegame file with Gibbed so I'm not missing that.) The DLC mods (not official releases) I've got are:

• Back Off and relevant compatibility patches
• An EDI mod from here at Nexus
• Extended Anderson End Conversation
• JohnPs Alternate MEHEM
• Citadel Epilogue Mod
• Ken & Gabby Conversation
• A Liara Cosmetic mod
• Expanded Galaxy Mod
• ME3Recalibrated
• A Tali Cosmetic mod

1. I have tried installing the mesh by using the PCC
2. I have tried installing the mesh by using the UPK in the resources folder in Meshplorer
3. I have tried installing the texture using the tpf files and ME3Explorer's TPF Tools
4. I have tried applying the texture using Texmod
5. I have tried using textures from provided source files for mods that have them, or extracting the textures from the TPF for mods that don't, and applying them manually using Texplorer
6. I have tried installing this mod after all others so that it overrides any potential conflicts, even though I can't see where any would be
7. I have tried wiping everything and reverting to vanilla, then using the hair mod on the vanilla game with no other textures applied at all (except for in the Downloads)

ETA: Just checked and it doesn't appear any of my DLC mods touch the BIOG_HMF_HIR_PRO.pcc file, so we can rule out conflict there.

 

ETA2: At first I thought there were a couple mods that worked properly early on in my playthrough and that it's only the mods I applied later when I decided my Shep needed a change that failed. Now I suspect those mods never worked and the mesh just wasn't quite so medusa-like as to be obvious

 

ETA3: I have NOT tried seeing if they will work on a new playthrough. I have a possible theory, and I don't know how feasible it is, that maybe only the very first hair mod I used worked, and that every one I tried after that on the same character failed (but like I said in ETA2, the second one wasn't as noticeable because of the way the mesh looked without the texture.) In that case, it might be...a savegame issue? I mean, I've made all the necessary adjustments to the savegame, but maybe there is something else?

 

ETA4: Just tried it on a new character to see if it was an issue with switching after the hair has already been modded once. Same problem. There's just no texture. I am so at my wits' end here. There's absolutely no reason I can see that this shouldn't be working.

 

Unless... Could it be something in the coalesced file? It's tweaked for Nvidia graphics as per the a lot project. I've got the ARM_HGR files set for the breather masks mod as well, but that's a different PCC altogether. My Coalesced, however, is modded to make those masks the default.

 

UGH!

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I could try?

 

ETA5: I just tried removing every DLC mod leaving only the official ones, still having the same problem, which pretty much confirms it's not a conflict with any DLC. I could try it using totally vanilla'ed DLCs (meaning unscanned, even, so the sfar files haven't been extracted) but I started having this problem on my last playthrough, where the DLC hadn't been scanned and the sfars extracted, so I'm reasonably sure that would be futile.

 

ETA6: Okay, this may be an important breakthrough. I have tried hair modding with brosheps before and it worked fine, so I decided to create a male Shep with everything the same as I'm doing for the femshep--same DLCs, same minor texture and graphics tweakings, etc.

 

I decided to use girlplaysgames "Chain Reaction" because I figured it has enough happening away from the face that I should be able to see if it's just the mesh and not the texture. Here's what it's supposed to look like:

 

http://i2.wp.com/www.girlplaysgame.com/wp-content/uploads/MassEffect3-2014-11-10-10-40-08-01.jpg?resize=526%2C296

 

Here is what I got:

 

http://i.imgur.com/j1WWIDx.jpg?1

 

It's not a great screenshot but unless the difference is extremely subtle, I'm going to say that yes, there is a texture there. So obviously this is a problem only affecting femsheps for me.

 

Not sure what that accomplishes except narrowing things that might be causing it down a bit.

Edited February 18, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[ElysiumFic]

ETA7: I went back and did a full-on vanilla. I.E. I reverted to a freshly unzipped ME3Explorer with no tree, reverted to unscanned/unextracted DLC, etc. Here's my results so far...

 

1. Totally vanilla, No DLC mods, fresh ME3Explorer install, nothing scanned

1.1. Run TOCbinUpdater just in case (no changes)

1.2. [Kani’s hair #5 “NewSea Frizzy”] Swap modded BioG_HMF_HIR_PRO.pcc into CookedPCConsole folder

1.3. Run TOCbinUpdater (changes found)

1.4. Load TPF with Texmod

1.4.1. Results: Works, and hair color is appropriate

1.5. Re-vanilla and run TOCbinUpdater

1.6. Repeat 1.2-1.4 using girlplaysgames’ Top Gorgeous (making sure to edit savefile for different mesh)

1.6.1. Results: Works, texture is smooth but hair color is darker than what it should be

1.7. Re-Vanilla BioG_HMF_HIR_PRO.pcc file

 

For comparison sake:

 

http://i.imgur.com/mbrL43P.png?1

 

http://i.imgur.com/8JgDHkf.png?1

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-okcrBafJJ94/UjIAgL2HFgI/AAAAAAAAAgg/sY_8F94Qm90/s640/MassEffect3+2013-09-12+21-42-21-71.jpg

(this one is the modders pic, the two above are my with and without the issue)

 

2. Install DLC mods

2.1. Approximate order and hierarchy:

2.1.1. Extended Galaxy Mod, Hotfix, and BO Patch

2.1.2. JAM Version B & JAM to CE

2.1.3. CEM Full and BO Patch

2.1.4. Extended Anderson Convo

2.1.5. Backoff & BOPatches

2.1.6. ME3Recalibrated w/Patches

2.1.7. DLC_CON_EDI, DLC_CON_LIAC, and DLC_CON_TALIFF

2.1.8. Ken & Gabby recruitment mod

2.2. Re-test step 1.6

2.2.1. Results: Works so far

3. Extract DLC and run Scan/build tree

3.1. Retest with texmod

3.1.1. Oops. Broke it. Game isn’t starting at all, try to AutoToc everything?

3.1.2. Results: No joy. Still broken. Back to square 1.

Edited February 18, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[CreeperLava]

So, if I understand your last post correctly, you rollbacked to vanilla, then installed DLC mods, then changed a vanilla PCC and built a tree on top of it ? That could be the cause of your problems. Texmod uses 'hashes', ie texture IDs to replace textures. If you change a PCC, the texture ID changes too. For example, if you replace a texture with me3explorer, you cannot replace it again with the same hash using Texmod. Shouldn't crash the game though.

What would cause a problem too is that you are building a tree on a non vanilla PCC. You could try to first build your tree with all DLC mods, then replace the PCC (or even better, make the changes to the PCC yourself, that would be ideal, eg with the .upk if I am not mistaken).

[me3deager]

I think CreeperLava is on the right track there. See if that helps. My method with textures has been this as well.

 

If things aren't "vanilla" with the entire ME3 directory cleared out, I uninstall ME3, nuke the folder contents, and install again. Granted, I usually have a backup a vanilla install I use to save download time as you can copy that over, install ME3, and it compares the files you have needing to only download about 2%.

 

Then, I install whatever "DLC mods" I'm going to use. The ones where it creates the DLC_CON_MODNAMEHERE or DLC_EXP_MODNAMEHERE folders.

 

After I do that, then I install any .mod files I may have.

 

Then I do the the texture scan. Basically, do what CreeperLava was saying.

[ElysiumFic]

No, I re-vanilla'ed everything before running the scan.

 

I was trying to do was see if the mod worked on a completely vanilla game, to try to narrow down where it stopped working.

 

So I swapped out the pcc and tested the texture with texmod (which of course wouldn't require me to run the scan.) Once I confirmed that everything was working BEFORE the scan, I swapped the vanilla pcc back in. I forgot to specify that in the document. Step 2.2.2 should have been "re-vanilla the pcc again."

 

So when I ran the scan, all the files were vanilla. I know better than to run the scan on non-vanilla files. :smile:

 

Here's where I am now (when I c/p it changes the outline back to start at 1 but it's actually starting at Step 4 when continuing from what I posted above. So these are actually steps 4- :cool::

 

1. 1. Re-vanilla’ed. Game starts. Attempting Step 1 and 2 again.

1.1. Works so far. Now to extract and scan. Again. Ugh.

1.2. YAY! Success. Game loaded.

1.3. Back up scanned DLC. Commence applying mods.

1.4. Test of hair mod using texmod:

2. Add in a few select mods one or two at a time

2.1. Apply edited coalesced

2.1.1. Success

2.2. Test a few armor/clothing/hair texture and mesh mods

2.2.1. Success

2.3. Test a few more random mods—character textures, etc.

2.3.1. SUCCESS. Time to get cocky and try a lot files

3. GOING FOR THE GOOD STUFF: Apply textures

3.1. Revert to Vanilla + Scanned DLC to undo any changes made while testing in Step 5. Run TOCbinUpdater.

3.1.1. Ruh-roh. Infini-load. AutoTOC everything!

3.1.1.1. Tentative Conclusion: Sometimes in the process of scanning DLC something gets glitched. This is twice now that an attempt to scan a completely vanillaed game has broken it, once with r653 and now with r733

3.1.1.2. Corollary: Sometimes vanilla scanned DLC backups aren’t as vanilla as one would think, since I reverted twice to my “vanilla” backups before nuking everything and scanning again.

3.1.2. AutoTOC didn’t work. Time to try again.

4. Complete vanilla + repair then scan (since I know it's not the mods themselves breaking things when applied to vanilla files)

4.1. Finally worked. Theory: the reason it failed is because one of the auto-installers puts something somewhere other than in the DLC folder. No more copying DLC separately. Copy the whole shebang into backup. Alternative theory: one of the DLC mods has textures that are botching things up.

5. TEST MODS ONE BY ONE

5.1. While trying to keep to installation order recommended on the ME3Explorer wiki Mod Formats page (content DLCànon-DLC contentàmeshesàtextures) I will also attempt to keep as much as possible to the following hierarchy to avoid less important textures overwriting more important textures:

5.1.1. Environmental-->people (general)àpeople (specific characters)àshepard

5.2. Replaced meshes. Testing: SUCCESS

5.3. Replaced Coalesced. Testing: SUCCESS

5.4. Replaced ALOT/Characters/Alliance textures: SUCCESS

5.5. Replaced ALOT/Characters/NPCS:

As you can see in Step 6.1 (Step 3.1 here) something went wrong. It was working fine, but when I reverted to all my vanilla files (with the scanned DLC that are also still vanilla) something broke, even though I was supposedly reverting to the same build that worked fine before.

But so far so good on Step 8. I'm installing the ALOT textures from the .dds files instead of the .metpf files, so that I can install them in smaller chunks, test after each installation, isolate which files need to be rolled back if necessary, and thus isolate where things mess up a little more accurately.

Edited February 19, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[ElysiumFic]

I think CreeperLava is on the right track there. See if that helps. My method with textures has been this as well.

 

If things aren't "vanilla" with the entire ME3 directory cleared out, I uninstall ME3, nuke the folder contents, and install again. Granted, I usually have a backup a vanilla install I use to save download time as you can copy that over, install ME3, and it compares the files you have needing to only download about 2%.

 

Then, I install whatever "DLC mods" I'm going to use. The ones where it creates the DLC_CON_MODNAMEHERE or DLC_EXP_MODNAMEHERE folders.

 

After I do that, then I install any .mod files I may have.

 

Then I do the the texture scan. Basically, do what CreeperLava was saying.

Yeah, that has been my process, too. Exactly as you mention here, except that I don't install the .mod files before the scan. For some reason I thought I was supposed to scan with nothing except the DLC mods installed.

 

My outline wasn't clear, but when I ran the scan everything was vanilla except for the DLC mods. Basically I'm just following the process recommended on the ME3Explorer wiki, with the exception that this time I temporarily did a couple tests and then rolled the files back before scanning. So what happened in Step 3 is:

 

Vanilla install + DLC

test a couple easily rolled-back mods

roll back to vanilla

scan

broke it

 

Then, here in step 6, what happened was

 

Vanilla install + DLC (step 4)

scan

backup everything

test mods (step 5)

revert to backup of scanned vanilla to undo any steps made in the test (because if I'd left them some of the mods would have been installed in the wrong order and therefore the textures I wanted to have when I was done might be overwritten)

broke it

 

I have no idea why reverting to the exact same files that had worked just a little while before would break it, but it did. So I started over and now things are working. For the time being. Will know for sure after I'm done installing everything.

Edited February 19, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[me3deager]

All right, good luck then and let us know how this route goes.I will say this, even I pretty much got all my .mod files set and I haven't touched them since because of crazy issues. Once I got them set, I made my own DLC_EXP_MODS "DLC mod" folder and pop in the files there, run AutoTOC, and then I don't have to ever mess with them again. :)

 

Come to think of it, I should write a tutorial on that and share the shell DLC_EXP_MODS with people. It's really handy. But I also avoid most hair mods. Partially because Femshep looks great to me with pulled back hair so she can see where to shoot, but also because I gather, for some reason, that the hair mods are some of the toughest to get installed.

[ElysiumFic]

All right, good luck then and let us know how this route goes.I will say this, even I pretty much got all my .mod files set and I haven't touched them since because of crazy issues. Once I got them set, I made my own DLC_EXP_MODS "DLC mod" folder and pop in the files there, run AutoTOC, and then I don't have to ever mess with them again. :smile:

 

Come to think of it, I should write a tutorial on that and share the shell DLC_EXP_MODS with people. It's really handy. But I also avoid most hair mods. Partially because Femshep looks great to me with pulled back hair so she can see where to shoot, but also because I gather, for some reason, that the hair mods are some of the toughest to get installed.

I'd be very interested in seeing that. I've been wondering if there is a way I can stick all this in a DLC and just drop it in if I ever have to rebuild.

 

As for hair mods, they're not particularly difficult if the author provides the .pcc and a .tpf. Then all you have to do is a couple small tweaks to your savegame (it does suck that you can't apply them UNTIL you have a savegame.) I still don't know what was causing the original issue I posted about with the textures not applying. They apply now (or they have in tests so far, haven't gottent everything set up again and tried it.) I've just had various issues getting to the point where I had everything set up again because things kept getting weird while I tested along the way, lol.

 

I do like the flexibility of authors providing the resource files. If a hair mod overwrites Allers hair, for example, but I don't want to see Allers messed up, with the source files I can change another hair instead (assuming it has the same number of bones.) Same with armor or outfits.

 

As for Femshep's hair--it's a roleplaying thing. Basically in my mind it goes like this:

 

Beginning of game, she's got some pretty badass and/or sloppy hair. Because she's traumatized, right? Six months ago she pulled a Rip van Winkle, then she was forced to be responsible for the deaths of over a quarter of a million people, then she got arrested and is considered "disgraced" if you listen to the news. So she's not going to be a perfectly polished, put together soldier. While she's under house arrest, she's just all, "Pfft, f*#@ it, I do what I want."

 

Something like, say, this:

http://i1.wp.com/www.girlplaysgame.com/wp-content/uploads/MassEffect3-2015-08-31-10-34-08-25.png?resize=526%2C296

 

Then the attack on earth happens and she's back in command, and while she's still traumatized from all of the above, she's pulling herself together:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zzZEw4xHCnY/UkCoT18mtbI/AAAAAAAAAjI/N4jRBmHRCh4/s640/MassEffect3+2013-09-24+00-40-08-49.jpg

 

BUT she's also not sleeping, probably not eating, being run ragged from one end of the galaxy to the other because apparently the leaders of all the other sentient races are children who don't know how to stop bickering while there's a crisis going on. And THEN she gets her ass handed to her on Thessia. So gradually she becomes more and more unkempt:

http://40.media.tumblr.com/2c69542241fdba6438801497cd51e83f/tumblr_mt0y4nz5fO1sg46y3o1_500.jpg

 

She pulls herself back together for the final attack on earth, but by the time she reaches the Conduit, if her uniform is in tatters I doubt her hair is going to be in a nice, neat bun. It'll be more like this:

http://i0.wp.com/www.girlplaysgame.com/wp-content/uploads/MassEffect3-2015-08-22-15-11-31-15.png?resize=349%2C197

 

So there's a method to all this madness. :D

[me3deager]

That's some dedicated roll play there for Femshep. I just like the ponytail, the crazy high-bun, short hair, or shaved. By ELE of course. ;) I even did a custom version of the ponytail.

 

http://imageshack.com/a/img921/845/ntrwvX.png

[ElysiumFic]

That's some dedicated roll play there for Femshep. I just like the ponytail, the crazy high-bun, short hair, or shaved. By ELE of course. :wink: I even did a custom version of the ponytail.

 

 

I like that. :smile:

 

But yeah. I'm all about the immersion.

 

Here's my fantasy of a Shep customization mod package, which probably isn't even possible, but it would absolutely be awesome if it were:

 

The package would have a bunch of these hair mods together with an app similar to the one that comes with the Dragon Age: Redesigned companion modules (i.e. the app lets you choose precisely which version you want and installs it for you--of course I know that ME3 is a much more complex game as far as modding goes.)

 

Bonus points if the app would let you choose the savegame you want to edit, makes the changes necessary there, and creates a new savegame file (thus preserving a backup of the unchanged one.)

 

That would (hopefully) idiot-proof the process.

 

Of course, it wouldn't need idiot-proofing (at least where the savegame edit is concerned) if there were a way to choose Allers hair or CustomCute or whatever during character creation. I know how to add face presets to the character creator in the coalesced file, but I haven't seen anything that would let you adjust which hair models are offered.

 

It would also rock if it were possible to make some of these hair or outfit changes their own model instead of replacing a model already in the game (frex, it wouldn't replace Allers hair, or a clothing mod wouldn't replace the dress or hoodie or whatever.)

 

I'd give anything to know how to make this stuff instead of understanding just enough to play around with it a little but never enough to make it actually accomplish what I wish it could.

Edited February 19, 2016 by ElysiumFic