Mass Effect 3 Hair textures won't apply

[ElysiumFic]

I feel like I'm talking to myself here, but I've been experimenting with this this week and I feel like I'm on the cusp of making a mod that would work and make hair modding in general more plug-and-play and thus idiot-proof for everyone. But I've gone as far as I can without asking for help, and after the way I got shut down last week I'm not feeling like I'd be welcome asking in the ME3Explorer forums. At best, I'd be somewhat-kindly told "go back to the sandbox, kid-modder, this is grown up-modder stuff you can't possibly understand" rather than "okay, you're trying to understand and you've come a long way teaching yourself, let's help you make it that last couple steps." So I guess I'm stuck. :/

 

ETA: Eh, beat my social anxiety down and went for it.

Edited February 24, 2016 by ElysiumFic

[me3deager]

Heh. Yeah, I can never figure out what exactly is and isn't kosher on the me3explorer forums. My gut tells me, it's like someone has to make a mod or show that they're getting something done and then they'll get responses.

 

In defense of the forum, there probably have been literally hundreds of people over the years who want to "make a mod" but the sad truth is, they just can't. The tools are hard to use to mod. Heck, Fob and I were chatting when I finally figured out how to create different objects using a hex editor. Bottom line, there's no great way to give a tutorial for that. People really do just have to figure it out as some modding involves brutal hex coding.

 

Your plug and play idea could be interesting. My gut tells me you've basically set it up where you have the .mod file installed, just one, of each hair and then off all of those variants, each packed in a DLC_* folder for people to swap in and out. Am I right? This could work if you named each DLC_* folder for each variant. The reason you would do this is so that people could have all of them installed, install their textures using texplorer, tpf/dds tools, and then after that, swap the mods in and out as needed. In fact, the easiest way to de-activate a mod is to simply rename it _DLC_***. So, for testing, I'll have MEHEM and JAM and LIME installed and just rename then _DLC_CON_MEHEM or _DLC_CON_LIME to get them out of the picture while testing stuff with JAM.

 

Now, to explain this in an elegant way to an end user for the mod...not impossible at all, but it certainly would require some tutorial.

[ElysiumFic]

Yeah, the hex coding is likely where I'll fall down. I've come quite a ways teaching myself stuff this past week, but hex coding is not something I click with intuitively the way I do other things

 

The problem with hair modding is that unless there's a way to put it in the character creator or closet for people to select in-game, we're never going to be able to get rid of the step of editing the savegame to change their hair mesh, diff and mask. Definitely, we could swap out the DLC folders for any number of hairstyles, and sometimes not even need to edit the savegame in between (if the hair mods use the same mesh, i.e. ProJessica or CustomCute.)

 

It would be easy, though first I have to just get a DLC hair with texture to work. I haven't yet, the DLC works, because the mesh is there, but the texture isn't no matter how many times I follow the tutorials by AVPen and kinkojiro to put custom textures in a mod. Hell the kinkojiro one is specifically ABOUT hair, so obviously it can be done, I just haven't quite accomplished it yet. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong pointing the .pcc to the .tfc.

 

The problem with that is that it doesn't fix the issue of conflicts with the hundred-some hair mods using the ProJessica mesh. Any time that mesh is used, it's going to mess up Allers hair if she's around in your PT, and conflict with any mods that alter Allers' hairstyle.

 

That's why I really want to figure out how to add new meshes to the PCC. Even if I never figure anything else out with getting it into the character creator or closet or even making it a DLC mod (you did say DLC isn't great for changing stuff relating to Shepard) if I can do that one thing, I could have multiple--maybe even all?--the hair mod meshes in a single PCC file, apply all the textures with a single .tpf, and from that point on, all the user would have to do would be to edit their savegame to switch hairs. Everything else is already there. And it wouldn't mess with Allers hairstyle or anyone elses.

 

I'm almost there. Hell, I've DONE it, I just haven't done it successfully yet. :D

[ElysiumFic]

Answer me honestly: am I having trouble expressing myself? Sometimes I do. I apparently can't communicate things as clearly as I would like. I've tried to be very clear that this is an issue beyond the usual stuff that can be fixed if someone just reads the instructions and follows them, and that it's not a problem with a specific mod, but that doesn't seem to be getting across, because several people now have assumed the problem is something I've already stated it's not.

 

Am I being unclear on that?

[Thandal]

... Am I being unclear on that?

 

Obviously. :laugh:

[me3deager]

Heh, nice Thandal. ;) But I think I'm actually tracking with ElysiumFic.

 

ElysiumFic, I think I know what you're saying. Ultimately, you'd like a ton of hair meshes to be available in the character creator for a player to use without having to decide which hair mod or mods to install. But right now, you're stuck on just getting one of these blasted things installed and working, which is seriously slowing down your idea. Let me share what I know about your plan.

 

1. Adding objects is a pain. Granted, you'd have the advantage of copying the hex, or potentially using me3creator to clone existing hair, rename them by adding a new name in the name list, and then maybe it could work. But I suspect you'll have to edit quite a few files in this way. And I think adding objects can still lead to instability at times with the game...it's a very difficult thing to do. Kinkojiro might be the best at it right now who's actually still active. Which leads me to...

 

2. You seem very excited by this idea. That's good. Crazy passion is pretty much required to mod ME3 as it's a notoriously difficult game to mod. Sit back for just a bit and try to break down how to do this; which I think you have done. First, make sure you can get at least one hair mod installed and working. Once you can do that, see if kinkojiro or someone who knows about this stuff, will chat with you on the me3explorer forum. Just ask the question if it's feasible or not. I know kinkojiro has figured out how to add tons of objects to files but I don't know enough to tell you how. It may be streaming states, it may be the actual meshes are in the files...I'm not sure. But it's amazingly impressive.

 

3. Understand that while the m3explorer "folks" can seem cranky, it's probably just a jaded response to all the requests over the years. Tutorials are written and giftfish is doing a good job of getting them all together for people on a wiki, but when you read them all...it's daunting. And all it takes is one mistake to not make a mod work at all. Mostly, as modders, we're going at it alone. I'm guessing most of us work for 10 hours or more on a problem before we finally post and ask for help. The more modding experience you have, the more likely you are to get help. It's not fair exactly, but it's reality.

 

4. So work as hard as you can to get a hair mod installed in the first place. Prove you can do that to yourself. You can still ask the question if it's possible to add extra hair choices to the pcc files during character creation, but my hunch is you won't get a full "how to" article because it's really difficult. And you kind of need to luck out. When I made LIME, I was really struggling with some conditionals stuff. Kinkojiro saved the day. I told him I couldn't repay him but he said he just liked the idea of my mod, I had shown enough of it so people could see it was going to happen, and he helped out. Basically...

 

5. People have to want to mod something. I have an interest in being nice to you and helping since I know people get shot down maybe a bit too much on the me3explorer forum. But what you want to do is truly beyond what I know right now. I'm not saying I couldn't maybe figure it out but for me, it's too much work for the hair mods with not enough payoff for me. Selfish to be sure, but this relates back to point 2; crazy passion. People have to want to do something or see someone else succeed to help. JohnP was very, very patient with me on a certain issue with CEM transition mod stuff but he also could tell I was 2 steps away from figuring it out so it took him less time to help.

 

To sum up. Figure out what you want to ask and ask it succinctly. You don't have to sound like a small kid just hoping to get a present from your parents, but just try to write some very specific questions. Even something like, "I would like to know if it's even possible to add new meshes to pcc files so that the character creator would allow people to choose from among many hair options. Or, is this just not possible at all or too much work to even bother?" That's usually how I phrase my questions. The forum is much slower than it used to be. I was fortunate enough to be there when a lot of modders were around and there was synergy. Now it's more of a repository of information and people have to read through stuff and figure it out. Largely, the Shorter Dreams mod was me just working my tail off. I got some help but that was pretty much me pulling my hair out for 30 hours of work and in theory, I knew what I was doing.

 

So, my long post isn't a good example of how to be succinct but I figure you, and probably others, need to see the realities of modding, why the me3explorer forums may seem so "not nice at times," and all that. Modding is a long process. Personally, I think you'd be happy if you can get the hair mods installed that you want and enjoy the game. Maybe even write a tutorial pointing out where you were having trouble. That could help others. I've done that plenty myself where I get stuck on someone's tutorial, figure it out, and then write my own tutorial on the part where I got stuck; referencing back to the original tutorial.

[ElysiumFic]

Yes, your summation of what I'm going for is pretty accurate, but the character creation thing is just sort of my pie-in-the-sky aspiration that I don't expect to ever happen. I'd be satisfied with one or both of the following goals:

 

1) eliminate the issue I keep having of hair mods working and then...just not working anymore -- see #2

2) package the hair mods in a more plug-and-play way (put them in a DLC, probably) -- I think this would be an excellent way to eliminate that annoyance the modders over there have with hair mods not working for people

3) eliminate the conflict where the majority of hair mods use Allers' mesh and thus mess up her hair (using the cloning technique) -- this is just a personal pet peeve

 

I will definitely hit up kinkojiro because right now I can't get their custom-textures-in-DLC method to work for me . The textures just aren't applying to the mesh, even though I've done every step on their tutorial. I just have to tamp down my social anxiety again. :/

 

(Hey, look, a short post!)

Edited February 25, 2016 by ElysiumFic