Turning NPC to VampireRace BlackFace Suggested Fix

[JRICH604]

One of the features in the 2 most popular Vampire Overhauls Better Vampires and Sacrosanct and others is the ability to turn any NPC into a Vampire by setting them into their respective vampire race. Many users find that for many when they do this they get the dreaded Blackface. This topic is to get feedback for what you think would be the best solution for this problem. Here is my take on this

Why does this happen? In skyrim unlike your PC all NPC faces is pre-generated and called on when you load them in game aka facegendata which is a head nif ( meshes ) and tint ( Textures ) file specific for that NPC from either the master files or the last mod which hopefully correctly altered them which will have new exported facegendata that loads and replaces vanilla Ex. Bijin. That data which is pre-generated and called on was exported with that character set in a particular race and may not be valid if the race is changed in game. If it is no longer matching with the facegen it will result in Blackface for that NPC.

Wait but it works for some though what gives? Like I said it depends entirely on what was chosen when their face was made for headparts etc. Many of these need to still be valid and stay the same in the vampire race but the thing is the vampire race is not identical to the human for all of these. You can mitigate this to a degree by using Unofficial Patch which added back in many missing but even then some will still get Blackface when turned.

The game does not like it when you change an NPC race mid-game and usually spasms out. It is not an accident that Serana is never set as NordRaceVampire and instead is always NordRace in the game regardless of whether she is "cured" or not. One solution to this problem is to Seranafy the NPC if you will, that is something that BetterVampires already can do which is instead of actually changing the race of the NPC it will instead add in vampire abilities and switch out their eye texture to the vampire one. Since the race is not changing their is no blackface. Downside is since the facegendata did not change their eyes of course will not glow and females will not get fangs as those need to be already present in the head nif.

So here goes the only way I personally know of that would fix this so you could actually walk up to any actor in the game, seduce them , and turn them into a real vampire as in set them in the vampire race without any Blackfaces

First you would need to install and use a mod which allows you to walk up to any NPC in the game and copy their face onto your own. Before you copy the face you need to first set your PC as the same race/sex/weight as the NPC you want to do this for. Now copy the face and then use console to set yourself as the vampire race so if it was a Nord you would set yourself as NordRaceVampire. Now you use spf in console and give the name of the actor with vampire tacked at the end. You now need to repeat this for every valid actor in the base game with all DLC.

After you have vampire NPC files in the game folder for all of them you now need to go into CK and one by one make a duplicate of each one. Then in each duplicate you change the race to vampire and then import the face and preview it to ensure it is not missing any HP which you will know if you see floating teeth with no head etc

After you have saved all of these you can export facegen for all these new vampire duplicates and save the esp. Your not done yet, now for each and everyone of these you need to tie an event so that for whichever Overhaul you use when you turn them it will swap out the human facegendata with the new vampire you made.

This will of course only take you about the rest of your natural born life to do correctly and by the time you finish the rest of us will be playing TES13 or have passed on to Sovngarde

.."Yes Yes OMG look I turned Bandit #587B and shes got sweet glowing eyes and fangs!!! Worth so totally worth!!!"..

So in theory should this work? Yes, is it realistic and practical to do this? No

 

As it currently is it is all or nothing it seems

Here is a compromise to consider, there are some fun follower mods which already have been made which already do this same process. What the Authors did is the same as described but on a much smaller more practical scale. In these mods you as the player have access to a "body changer" spell which can swap out their in game appearance to even include different hairstyles without needing to re-install the mod and with no blackface. This is of course possible because they already have multiple pre-generated headmesh to match the selection you choose which can be hotswapped in and out.

So the compromise is instead of being able to seduce Bandit #587B with race change what if a selection of a few key popular named NPC were done instead? Lydia comes to mind along with key followers in the game and some potential spouses. Personally I feel that having the Seranafication of generic actors combined with a few select ones that would actually get their race changed is the way to go. These of course being chosen as the ones players would likely spend a decent amount of time playing with in the game to make it worthwhile.

 

So for your favorite Vampire Overhaul "There are many" what do you think about all this?
do you agree or disagree?
If you disagree how would you solve this problem instead?
If you agree which NPC would be important for you to be able to fully turn without blackface and how many do you think would be a reasonable number to do the process with?

[Swordsguy2010]

O_O... uhm..i didn't read all of that sorry :/, but i'm using Better Vampires mod and i have NEVER ran into a black face bug. Its either your system, or theres a bug with combining both BV and Sacrosanct. i have however ran into a (unrelated) Black road bug where patches of the ground and along the roads was completely black. i just... begrudgingly ignored it and kept playing and eventually it fixed itself after a few load door transitions. perhaps thats the fix? or just get rid of one of the vampire overhauls (Sacrosanct) and see if that fixes it.

[JRICH604]

o_O... uhm..i didn't read all of that sorry :/, but i'm using Better Vampires mod and i have NEVER ran into a black face bug. Its either your system, or theres a bug with combining both BV and Sacrosanct. i have however ran into a (unrelated) Black road bug where patches of the ground and along the roads was completely black. i just... begrudgingly ignored it and kept playing and eventually it fixed itself after a few load door transitions. perhaps thats the fix? or just get rid of one of the vampire overhauls (Sacrosanct) and see if that fixes i

 

 

i'm using Better Vampires mod and i have NEVER ran into a black face bug

Correct, that is because the default setting for BV does Not change them to vampire race and instead gives them vampire traits and eye texture only so no you and many other users would not run into this problem unless....you changed it so it Does change their race which is what the original post is addressing. If you didnt know you had that option you do now. If you are curious as to why a user would want to switch it so it does do that even though they might get BF I covered that in original post. Also there is nothing wrong with my system, not trying or even said I was running them together. It may be helpful for me to link a recent post from a user so I will look for one and ill use BV since thats the one that you say you are using so you know what I am actually addressing here but remember I am talking about any overhaul that lets you do this not just BV

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5002365-better-vampires-74/page-163&do=findComment&comment=58038246