How to stop Skyrim which seems to override custom body texture?

[uyuzgurt]

I have a problem which I can not find any solutions until now. So I am looking for somebody who may help or say it is impossible to do. My purpose is to make a custom body skin texture for a modded outfit. For example, I have a clothing mod of which I would like to add a custom tattoo. I want this tattoo to appear only when my character is wearing that particular clothing. I do not want the tattoo appear on any NPC who is not wearing that particular clothing or any other clothing or armour when my character puts it on. Everything seems to work both in CK and nifskope but when the game runs it seems to override the body skin with default one. I can change the clothing or armour texture but can not change the nude body texture of the clothing. As long as I understand, almost every clothing mod has its own body mesh and does not use game's original body mesh (or in mycase CBBE). I can say that because when my character wear a clothing he or she has different nude body type (for example breast sizes change depending on clothing and which body mesh clothing is using. Both CBBE and UNP(?) body can show up in the game according to clothing they are made. (I experimented similar situation and it seems to work) But it seems body meshes refuse to have a custom body texture. Is there any solution to the problem? Or it is just a limitation of the Skyrim? In some other scenario I created a Ashara mesh based texture, I made a nice bridal gown and wanted to add a bridal stockings by simply editing CBBE texture and renaming it like bridebody.dds In nifskope or in CK everything is working, I can see the my new clothing texture and my newly created nude body texture. But when the game runs it overrides the bridebody.dds with standard CBBE femalebody dds. I tried to make some search in the Internet but I can find nothing useful.

 

So what might be the problem? (PS. English is my second language so please don't mind some grammatical and spelling mistakes)

Edited April 29, 2012 by uyuzgurt

[MShoap13]

Did you update the alpha channel and normal map to reflect the tattoo?

[Perraine]

In the BSLightingShaderProperty under the NiTriShape of the "Body" parts, change the "Shader Type" from '5' to '1' or '0' (1 if your using a mask file and cube map for shininess and colour or 0 if not)

 

The game reserves the "5" shader type to mean Skin Textures, so it will ALWAYS override what textures are specified in the mesh by the default skin texture ... BUT ... This will mean that varying 'skin tones' WILL NOT WORK as it will see your skin texture file as a 'material' and not as 'skin'

 

The only way I know of to create a Player Only skin is to create a unique 'race' in the CK an colour it accordingly

[uyuzgurt]

In the BSLightingShaderProperty under the NiTriShape of the "Body" parts, change the "Shader Type" from '5' to '1' or '0' (1 if your using a mask file and cube map for shininess and colour or 0 if not)

 

The game reserves the "5" shader type to mean Skin Textures, so it will ALWAYS override what textures are specified in the mesh by the default skin texture ... BUT ... This will mean that varying 'skin tones' WILL NOT WORK as it will see your skin texture file as a 'material' and not as 'skin'

 

The only way I know of to create a Player Only skin is to create a unique 'race' in the CK an colour it accordingly

 

Thank you for your help. I understand what you mean with "skin tones will not work". Every NPC wearing that particular armor is going to have same skin tone whatever the race is. For this reason I made an exact copy of the body mesh and applied transparency on it. İt seems to work but game crashes time to time. Is it possible to create an overlay texture without making another copy of the body mesh?

Edited May 3, 2012 by uyuzgurt

[Perraine]

There are some unused 'slots' in the .Nif files, which people have been using for some of the Lingerie mods, but I have no idea how to use/implement them.

 

It's why I don't use a 'skin' tone for my mods, I make them leather or metal or Lycra so that I don't have the non matching skin tone issue. I still use the body mesh but I create new textures for it.