Texture set question for playable chars/NPC's

[Risuun]

I'm having issues with texture sets used by playable characters and NPC's.

 

So far, I've gone through many NPC entries in the creation kit and traced all texture references back to the texture sets that I'm editing.

 

I change them, and the NPC's only show up with the correct diffuse textures in the creation kit previews, but are showing the default normal maps.

 

However, launching the game shows that only playable characters seem to use the new diffuse texture but ignore the new normal map.

 

I am trying to change diffuse and normal maps for the eyes of different races.

 

All of my textures have unique names and are clearly changed in the texture sets in the .esp file.