How to install skin texture for custom race?

[trrrf]

I'm unable to properly install a skin for my custom race. When I install it, my character's skin becomes purple. How would I go about installing it?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Which race mod is it, and which texture? How do you install it?

 

Archive Invalidation is out of the question for Custom races, as like the name says they're not Vanilla and won't need it. So that can't be it.

 

Leaving only installation / association issues for the cause.

[trrrf]

Which race mod is it, and which texture? How do you install it?

 

Archive Invalidation is out of the question for Custom races, as like the name says they're not Vanilla and won't need it. So that can't be it.

 

Leaving only installation / association issues for the cause.

It's the moonshadow elf race, and I'm wanting to install the high rez skin texture for HGEC on it. I used the install tool in the high rez skin texture's folder to install the skin on my vanilla races, but it didn't install it for the moonshadow race. I tried to install the skin on my moonshadow race by deleting the race's default skins and copying over the textures from the imperial race folder to the moonshadow race folder.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Oh, I think I know exactly where you went wrong.

 

Going by the description of the Moonshadow Elves mod their skin texture files are all labeled "Moonshadow<SomethingSomething>.dds", whereas Vanilla skin textures are labeled for example "footmale.dds" and "footfemale.dds" respectively, and thus also the Imperial ones included inside the High-Rez Texture Pack.

 

If you now "deleted" the originals and just flat-out copy&pasted the Imperial files into their folder instead, without also "renaming" them afterwards, they don't have the proper names and won't be used by the game, while the files with the proper expected names can't be found anymore, as you deleted them, thus the missing textures error is created like you're experiencing right now.

 

Make sure the files you copied into their folder also have the proper expected names as found inside the race mod's documentation/description page install instructions. Then it should work.

 

Let me know if that was it already or if there's anything else wonky going on.

[trrrf]

Oh, I think I know exactly where you went wrong.

 

Going by the description of the Moonshadow Elves mod their skin texture files are all labeled "Moonshadow<SomethingSomething>.dds", whereas Vanilla skin textures are labeled for example "footmale.dds" and "footfemale.dds" respectively, and thus also the Imperial ones included inside the High-Rez Texture Pack.

 

If you now "deleted" the originals and just flat-out copy&pasted the Imperial files into their folder instead, without also "renaming" them afterwards, they don't have the proper names and won't be used by the game, while the files with the proper expected names can't be found anymore, as you deleted them, thus the missing textures error is created like you're experiencing right now.

 

Make sure the files you copied into their folder also have the proper expected names as found inside the race mod's documentation/description page install instructions. Then it should work.

 

Let me know if that was it already or if there's anything else wonky going on.

 

Fixed it. Changing the names worked. Now my problem is that my character's neck color doesn't match its body. I tried fixing that by editing my character with showracemenu, but my neck was always a darker color than the rest of my character.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Fixed it. Changing the names worked. Now my problem is that my character's neck color doesn't match its body. I tried fixing that by editing my character with showracemenu, but my neck was always a darker color than the rest of my character.

 

 

Well, that is actually a rather widespread and well-known problem that's also exceptionally hard to fix for good.

 

For one, did you also copy&paste the Imperial head textures from Ozmo's over or not? I know the Moonshadow Elves have their own very distinct faces, but that doesn't change the fact that their textures need to match to even remotely remove a neck seam. I don't think that can be done, or you'd be missing out on their unique facial tattoos. What you need is a high-rez version of their own skin textures, not just another race's with remarkably different skin tones for example.

 

But even if the head and body textures were matching, there'd still be the inherent differences around the connecting border introduced by the different EGT files for both (the files used for the configurable skin tint and coloration aspects). This part was attempted to be remedied, and admittedly remarkably successfully so, by junkacc's Seamless Equipment series of releases. But I don't know if the Moonshadow Elves have been covered already.

 

And then there's the seam created by the vector normals inside the meshes themselves not aligning, which again was attempted to be fixed by junkacc's mods. But as a matter of fact, every equipment item you wear comes with its own body mesh included, so they will all have to be replaced, one way or the other, just as well.

 

You see, the neck seam issue is a really wide-spread one and so far only, albeit really successfully so, partly solved.

[trrrf]

 

Fixed it. Changing the names worked. Now my problem is that my character's neck color doesn't match its body. I tried fixing that by editing my character with showracemenu, but my neck was always a darker color than the rest of my character.

 

 

Well, that is actually a rather widespread and well-known problem that's also exceptionally hard to fix for good.

 

For one, did you also copy&paste the Imperial head textures from Ozmo's over or not? I know the Moonshadow Elves have their own very distinct faces, but that doesn't change the fact that their textures need to match to even remotely remove a neck seam. I don't think that can be done, or you'd be missing out on their unique facial tattoos. What you need is a high-rez version of their own skin textures, not just another race's with remarkably different skin tones for example.

 

But even if the head and body textures were matching, there'd still be the inherent differences around the connecting border introduced by the different EGT files for both (the files used for the configurable skin tint and coloration aspects). This part was attempted to be remedied, and admittedly remarkably successfully so, by junkacc's Seamless Equipment series of releases. But I don't know if the Moonshadow Elves have been covered already.

 

And then there's the seam created by the vector normals inside the meshes themselves not aligning, which again was attempted to be fixed by junkacc's mods. But as a matter of fact, every equipment item you wear comes with its own body mesh included, so they will all have to be replaced, one way or the other, just as well.

 

You see, the neck seam issue is a really wide-spread one and so far only, albeit really successfully so, partly solved.

 

 

I never copy and posted the imperial head textures; I left the moonshadow head texture as it was. There isn't really a seam, it's a skin tone difference. The neck is a darker color. Would there not be a way to change the tone of the neck, without changing the tone of the rest of the body?

Edited June 13, 2016 by trrrf

[DrakeTheDragon]

That's what we call a texture seam, when there's a distinct border between one texture and the other, be it in structure or in color/tone or both, they just don't align.

 

To address this first and most integral part of seam fixing someone, or you, needs to edit one of the textures and, at least around the border region, make it blend better, be it the same color/tone or in structure.

 

I for one always copied part of the neck area from the body texture and upside-down pasted it into the head texture, making it blend in along the transition so there's no seam between the original and the pasted part either. Needless to say the results were less than stellar so far, but better than nothing still. I'm not a texture artist, I can't do this stuff. But maybe it's also due to me not creating "skin" textures but "scaled" ones rather, in which the structure, even more so than the tone, simply will never line up. (I'm trying to create alignment between a straight line and a curve here, just to illustrate the underlying core problem.)

 

But in your case it could be doable, having both, head and body textures, from both races, so blending the neck from the high-rez Imperial over the Moonshadow Elves' should create a workable result.