Using Unique Player (id 16470)

[RS13]

Now, it's become clear to me that you really meant it when you said you had no idea what's going on. That's OK, we were all that way once (I still am to a large degree). But let me try to explain what's going on.

 

Textures. These come in .dds files. Basically they're pictures. If you ever open them up with GIMP or Photoshop you'll see they are completely flat, just like any other image.

 

Meshes. These are often called "models." They're the 3D shape that the texture wraps around. (I'm not sure how exactly that works, but I know that's the basic idea.)

 

Now all the things--characters, items, contains, workbenches--that are in the game have a mesh and a texture. What tells them which mesh they have? How does the game know that Piper doesn't have a workbench texture and mesh? The .esm files says so (or in the case of mod-added items or characters, the mod's .esp file says so). It does the same thing the textures that Piper uses.

 

Let's get specific. Where does fallout.esm tell the game to look for Piper's mesh? Answer: "It says use the femalebody.nif file found in Meshes/actor/character/characterassests." And guess what? It says the same thing *for every human female in the entire game* including the PC. So, what unique character does is it makes changes to the PC--it says look for the femalebody.nif file *that's kept in a completely new place,* namely, meshes/actors/character/PlayerCharacterAssests. It does the same thing with textures except it uses the textures/actors/character/PLAYERhumanfemale

Now, you're probably thinking "wait, if the game says look in Meshes/actor/character/characterassests, why don't I have a characterassests folder in my character folder?" You do, kinda. It's just inside the Fallout-Meshes.BA2 archive. The game can look inside them for the meshes it needs, if they're not already already in the data folder (if they are, they're what's called loose files).

 

This is why you need to invalidate your archives: if you don't the game will always go directly to the archives even if there's a copy of that path outside the archive. It's also why retexture mods do not require a .esp file. They aren't telling the game to look for a new file or in a new place, they're just changing what the game finds when it looks in the old place.

 

That's the rough idea anyway. I could be wrong on some of the details, but if you aren't trying to make your own mods, this will help you understand what's you're changing.

[nxsilva]

Thanks RS13. And sorry for the mistaken identity. Goes to show how observant I am. Maybe I shouldn't be modding games :p.

 

I'll go over everything you just wrote and report back my success/failure.

 

One more quick question: Since my original post, I've changed over from CBBE to JaneBod. Do you know if this Unique Player is compatible with JaneBod?

[nxsilva]

RS13: Let me start at the end by saying "thank you." Because that was all very helpful and informative in general.

 

First, I had the Unique Player mod turned off in NMM. So that's why there was no PlayerCharacterAssets folder. I forgot I had disabled it when I couldn't get it to work.

 

Once activated, I found the folders and files you mentioned and made the moves. But in the game, my PC had no hands and her skin was all smeary (you probably know the look - when a mod isn't loaded properly, or whatever). Piper was fine though - so that at least tells me that the mod did only effect my PC, and no other. So it was "Unique" to my "Player" :p.

 

So I learned a lot of stuff that'll probably serve as useful in general. But something still isn't right. My guess is it's not compatible with Jane Bod. Or I still did something wrong.

[RS13]

Unique player should be compatible with anybody whatsoever. Sounds like two separate problems.

 

With the hands, it sounds like you're missing femalehands.nif. With the skin, sounds like a texture problem. My best guess is the textures didn't wind up where they ought. If you're using Janebod meshes, you need to use Janebod-compatible textures. Sometimes you can get away with using textures that aren't designed for the meshes you're using--I'm doing it right now with superhero body and vanilla-based textures--but usually it's a bad idea.

[nxsilva]

I'm still playing around with this. I haven't broke anything - yet. Heh. I figured it should work with Jane Bod. With Unique Player disabled in NMM, my PC looks just fine. Basically, Jane Bod works. And I'm only using Jane Bod compatible mods. So no problem there.

 

Now that I've played around more, and you've pointed out the textures and meshes locations, I still think it comes back to my original question: The instructions say "copy the body/hand textures from your favorite body mod into 'data/textures/actors/character/PlayerHumanFemale'." My problem is: where are these "body/hand textures" from my favorite body mod? I don't know where these are.

Edited June 2, 2016 by nxsilva

[RS13]

You need to download your favorite body mod manually--you *can* do this via nmm, but it's a bad idea--unzip it and there will be a folder that says "textures." Follow it to the end of the line. (It will take you to a basehumanfemale folder. That's fine. It's author designed it to replace every female body in the game, not the PC's alone. You want the femalebody_d.dds, femalebody_n.dds and femalebody_s.dds. (Ignore the dirty ones.)

 

JaneBod does not seem to come with hand textures, so make sure there are some in your playerhumanfemale folder. (3 to be exact: they should end in d.dds, n.dds and s.dds respectively.)

 

If there are not any hand textures in playerhumanfemale, dl unique player manually, unzip it and copy the hand files from femalehumanplayer in just-unzipped folder to playerhumanfemale folder in your textures folder.

[nxsilva]

Okay, so as a test, I downloaded this: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8048/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Ffallout4%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D8048&pUp=1 Used the one for Jane Bod (which happens to be this hideous body builder chick).

 

For the first time, my PC's skin was NOT all smeared and deranged with the Unique Body activated - so that was a step in the right direction. And my PC was the body I created in BodySlide . . . until I got her naked, and up came the hideous body builder body. So I guess it worked; but I don't want my PC to be a hideous body builder. I want my PC to have the body I created in BodySlide.

 

But where do I find MY body that I created in BodySlide? How come I have to use somebody else's? Where's mine? It must be somewhere. Seems to me, I should be able to just get those body mod meshes/textures, and past them into the appropriate files - just like I did in this experiment.

Edited June 3, 2016 by nxsilva

[RS13]

Step in the right direction indeed. Open bodyslide, bring up the body you created--hopefully you saved it as a preset--then click build. A popup should tell you where it put it.

 

If you didn't save it as a preset, well, now you now why you always save it as a preset. But if you didn't check basehumanfemale. Probably that's your body. If not, then you're gonna have to run a search for femalebody.nif.

 

(As a side note, you cannot tell if your bodymod worked correctly by looking at your character in clothes. Your clothes will use whatever meshes they came with. So, e.g., if you download all CBBE armors, you will look like you're CBBE'd while wearing them. If you use vanilla armors, you'll look vanilla while wearing them. That's the downside to unique player. If you want your body and your clothes to match and be unique, you need to give your PC unique clothes. If you want to know how to convert armor to your chosen body, one of the optional files for superhero body is a walkthrough on how to do that. It doesn't always work, but it usually will.)

[nxsilva]

I do have my PC's body saved as a preset. I found the femalebody.nif and put in the PlayerCharacterAssets folder, but that just smeared up the skin - as ususal. BodySlide only produces one .nif file. Seems to me that there should be three each of .nif files (the d n s) and .dds (the d n s)?

[RS13]

No, there is only one .nif file. There are three .dds files. dds files are textures, nif files are meshes. Did you put the nif file in with the .dds files? They have to go in the exact right spot.