The Dark Faces bug : How to fix it?

[DylMan62]

If you still haven't solved this bug, I found a fix and laid it out in instruction format in my mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10522/ pretty much like the OP wanted. "Step by step like a child" lol.

 

Really not self promoting, just trying to get the word around and help people stop digging through forums to try and find a fix like I did. Give it a try, if it doesn't work, PM me or leave a comment and I'll try my best to help.

Edited February 8, 2018 by DylMan62

[NuveroticMods]

I'm using Mod Organizer 2.
I checked the ID by selecting the Gray Faced NPC's in game with the Console. It was always a 000**** code so I assume that's base game?
I know some of them are changed by a mod though, so that can't be right. Maybe I needed to check their Ref ID number or something else?

I then opened Creation Kit, loaded the mod I knew they were part of as my Active. Went to the ACTORS tab, the clicked ACTORS... Highlighted all 12 billion of the characters and pressed CNTRL+F4
It asked me if I wanted to export, I said yes.
The CK didn't respond for probably 20 minutes. In fact, it's been 23 minutes as I'm writing this.
Are they going to show up in my Overwrite folder? Or will they automatically add themselves to the .ESP? And if so, will they go to the correct .ESP or will they all go to the "ACTIVE" .esp? SInce I'm sure most of these NPC's were from Vanilla and not Realistic Faces.

 

 

I still have 4 other NPC replacer mods to do this to.
I used TESVedit to remove NPC's I didn't want overwriting other NPC's. Then deleted their Meshes and Textures out of the folders in MO2.
Somewhere I goofed and deleted Lisettes Mesh from the wrong mod I guess because she no longer has a face. I'm going to fix that next.
Still getting crashes, and I keep shrinking my load order because I can't find a good way to find out what mod is causing the problem. I've looked in TESV for errors, and fixed a few dozen by removing bad links.
Can clothing mods conflicting or NPC faces conflicting cause CTD's? I can get in game but when I'm in a city, I seem to CTD at random.
I've been modding now for 3 years, and I've spent dozens of hours watching video's over and over again to learn all this stuff and I still don't know the causes of my CTD's. I haven't been able to play Skyrim in 4 years. Ever since I started modding, I've been plagued with CTD's. But once you see the light, you can't go back, so I'm not going to give up modding... I just want to bash my face in the keyboard. 4 years of this dude.
Is there not a way to find out why I'm CTDing? Obviously, I use LOOT, clean my Masters, Run FNIS, remove mods I know break the game, read mod descriptions, get all the patches, sometimes make my own patches... What the hell am I missing?

[BaronofHe11]

Then id number you get from console is used to find npc in Xedit. From there you can find the npc and which mods are effecting it. Then you can delete the changes you don't need. For example I had a black face npc that had 5 mods messing with it. I only need the changes from one so I deleted the npcs from the other mods. Very dangerous to do if you have no idea what the mods are doing. I knew they were just cosmetic type or mods giving the npc new stuff.

 

That might fix the problem but if not I take note of form id number and name of the npcs and the last mod making changes to the npc. Load up the mod in CK not every mod you have. Find the npc with the black face and face gen just that npc. Should only take seconds or a minute. The files will be in the overwrite director if they weren't included before. If they were included before they will be in the mod that provided them. I'm not sure if this is bug with MO2. MO always placed updated in the overwrite director.

 

Anyway you make a mod out of the face gen files and place it at the bottom in your load order . If you still have the black face open up the console and do npcsetweight 35 on the npc. This might seem to work if you do it before the face gen but the npc will change back black sooner or later so do it after the face gen.

[lftarantini]

Open console, click on the affected character, type in setnpcweight 35 ,click enter. Voila. Sometimes it only gets to a one shade darker face than the rest of the body but still better than messing with the CK. Also the wrenches mod was the reason I got the error, but I still have it because it's a good mode, some console using on my gray faced people is no biggie in exchange

 

Worked like a charm, thanks!

[Aarguitar]

Anyone happen to know why the "setnpcweight 35" method fixes black face? It seems like you could potentially turn it into a more permanent and automatic fix through CK or something.

 

EDIT: I've noticed it doesn't really matter what weight you set it to, seems to work regardless.

Edited August 19, 2018 by Aarguitar

[shamiro1]

I have the same issue. Npc's that's not effected by the change of immersive npc's mod and deadly wenches and who's not a vampire or werewolves have that face bug and even kids (some of them). Strange... got used to this now. And btw I've found a fix in this thread so bookmarked and I will fix it on the next playthrough

[jjensson]

I fixed my black face bug permanently by following a forum suggestion - making a patch with Mator Smash. For me, the smash patch has completely replaced the bashed patch, no need to bash anymore. And everything works correctly - the black face bug is gone.

 

If someone is interested, i can post my mod list (based on TechAngel's mod list). If you tell me how to export a mod list out of MO2, that is. :)

[Moksha8088]

From some readings I found on this topic, there seems to be a relationship between the dark face and mismatched texture size mods. Seems that the body, face, brows, eyes, and hair texture sizes should all be the same size. Now that is just what I've read, but if accurate that would mean matching all 1K, 2K, 4K, etc... texture sizes.

 

The hard part is knowing the size of each texture mod. For instance, I might have True Eyes and True Brows installed since they seem the best, but do they match Apachii Hair, the Bijin Collection, CBBE on the ultra level, or some phosphorescent tooth mod? Just a thought.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Moksha8088

[Filzipz]

Hello! I have come across this problem as well and I don't know how to fix it, I have never used CK and for some reason, the Dark Face bug is only for the characters in the Companions Guild who have this bug, for example, Farkas and all the others in the guild. only the Dark elf doesn't have the Dark face bug (no pun intended) but I'm just so confused and I don't know what to do.

[Algabar]

Well, short explanation: The usual "dark face bug" is caused by conflicting records for one and the same NPC. E.g. if mod A changes Lydia and mod B also changes her, Lydia might (or might not) get a dark face. Another possibility is conflicting data between an NPC in game and conflicting data, that was baked into a savegame.

 

What helps (not always, but very often):

Sort your load order. Keep an eye on mods changing NPCs. If using e.g. different NPC replacers, put them in the "right" order. E.g. if you want "Bijin Warmaidens" to overwrite a different replacer, make sure that "Warmaidens" loads after that other replacer.

 

Now do what was suggested some posts above: Use Mator Smash and create a "smashed patch". Usually this does the trick.