Ported racemenu-created follower is an eldritch horror

[scarletkhaleesi]

I made my own custom face for a follower mod in Oldrim using Racemenu that just does not want to port properly. No matter what I try, his eyes are empty black pits (looks like the eye meshes are missing) and it's like having the Outsider follow me around everywhere. Not quite the look I was going for...

 

I have tried:

• Verifying "Has Tangents" is displaying properly in Nifskope for all relevant headparts
• Verifying the texture paths are correct
• Making equippable eyes from the potatoface the CK auto-generates - I can see that he's equipping them, but they are also invisible
• Using Outfit Studio to manually force all the headparts to align (I know, not its intended use but several other people experiencing missing headparts on followers reported this fixed it). The game CTDs with this head loaded.

I am not using any custom eye meshes in either version of Skyrim, the follower is not using a custom eye texture, and he is a vanilla race. All other headparts display correctly and the follower looks normal enough that I can ignore his lack of eyes at a distance...but any time I have to talk to him, it's super obvious and unsettling.

 

Is there something else I should try or am I completely out of luck until Racemenu is ported? If there's an extra step required to export a head mesh in Outfit Studio, please assume I missed it - I'm a house modder and this is way out of my area of expertise. Any help is appreciated!