Why are there seams showing in my mesh and lip file face distortion

[vicious1182]

Ok, so here are my problems. First off, I'm making a couple of custom companions and I've noticed some issues with their meshes, mainly around the head. I'm not a professional modeler by any means but I think everything should be weighted alright. I am giving them their own face parts for the head, I'm not sure if that's the problem though.

Now this one here...the part in the circle is supposed to be the neck before it attaches to the head part. Now that i could see as being a weighting problem, because it is so deformed. However, the arrow not in the circle is pointing at some other open seams. And this is where my main problem lies. The picture below this one might show it a little better.

https://imgur.com/H6aBCM1 - Full Image

If you can see them (I'm still unfamiliar with the image posting here, didn't want to post a picture that's too big) There are a bunch of little openings all over the face.

https://imgur.com/18D3GjY - Full Image

Now this mesh has a lot less of said openings but they are still there. They are also most noticeable when the character talks as I generated lip files for him.

https://imgur.com/cqv3Oad - Full Image

Which brings me to my other problem and that is the mesh distorting when the npc talks. Like I said, the mesh above has lip files generated for it. The problem is that the mesh simply distorts and the mouth doesn't seem to move much. If it's because the mesh I'm using is too big for the skeleton, then so be it, but if there's an easy way to fix it then I'm all ears.

As you can see, neither of these npcs are human, which I do know makes things a little difficult. They are wrapped around vanilla skeletons, which I don't think should cause the problems with the mesh but I have no clue. I've weighted and reweighted these meshes multiple times and am still running into the same result. I have noticed that the openings are only really around the head area and seem to lie along some of the seams of the UV but I would think that would just stretch, instead of turn invisible.

Any help you can give me would be appreciated. I've combed google and the message boards a bunch of times and come up with nothing so far. Thanks

Edited November 13, 2018 by vicious1182

[vicious1182]

Another question that I have is...do you need the npc to have a FaceGen head in order for the lip files to work properly? Or will the Creation kit generate them on whatever you put as the head? Mainly, can you generate lip files for a mask or does it have to be a face?

[Evangela]

It could be because the mesh is too big for the skeleton.

 

It could also be that the edges are not attached to the adjacent vertices on the opposite edges. I've long forgotten the 3D modeling term for that.

[vicious1182]

Thanks for the reply. Is the term you're looking for "welding?" Like where you take two or more vertices (or edges) and merge them to make one? 'Cause I've done that, however it seems the NifTools exporter for 3ds Max adds vertices to the mesh on either import or export (I can't tell which one it is. All I know is that I will weld the vertices together before export and when I import it back, there are more vertices than when I exported it.)

 

Something else I noticed...if you open up the supermutant body nif in NifSkope there is a small mouth-like part that is attached to the mesh. I'm not talking about the actual mesh that they have for the supermutant mouth, but a smaller one that almost seems like it could be a sort of bridge between the skeleton and the mouth part. What do you guys think? Could I be on to something with this? Could this be a way to get better mouth movement with larger heads?

 

As for the openings in the mesh...I think I might try reweighting it from scratch (ugh, this is gonna be a pain). Maybe the Skin Wrap modifier just can't handle the difference between the meshes I'm using. On that topic though...can I shrink the head that I want to use to fit the head that I want to get the weights from, copy said weights, and then resize the first head? Would this work or would it deform the weights?

 

Thanks

 

 

"I have a lot of questions. And I want them answered immediately." - Detective John Kimble

[ehtyeci]

I don't work with characters or armor much, but as I recall, most nif exporters for max support maximum 16 bit precision for vertex positions. What you're probably seeing is the exporter truncating the (full precision) vertex positions to fit into half precision. The only software I know that allows exporting with full precision is outfit studio.

As for why vertices get split into two in the first place, it might have to do with how the smoothing groups are set on the mesh. Each smoothing group is treated as separate geometry and will be split on export. It's a technique used to tell old engines to split normals unless told otherwise.

[Deleted49413338User]

I had this issue with my mod too. I partially got around it but I am like, a first time user of 3d programs. I only downloaded Blender for the one mod I made.

 

I am unfamiliar with Lip gen and face parts, but yeah the Supermutant nif that has that mouth part probably sits underneath the mouth and fills the gaps which would show when mouth moves.

 

What I done, which may not work for you, was to use Blender and Join shapes together, to create one mesh, not just Weld verticies at seam but completely join shapes. Head Rear, Body, Face, Hands etc all as one mesh before giving them bone weights with Outfit Studio. You need a Plug-in for Blender called Sparkles that retains the UV texture maps once you join the parts. Then import the .obj to Outfit Studio and give it weights. I didn't know about the plug-in at the time. The maps were still retained but I had to create a DDs texture that included head and body in one.

 

I don't have 3DS but I hear it has a lot of great features and you can do the bone weights in that program? You can probably do everything mentioned above with 3DS.

 

I would guess with face Parts, it might not work as they need to be separate to move independently. But for seams on head parts, neck etc. This worked for me when giving Human meshes the bone weights of Feral ghouls, otherwise there were huge seams in some places.

 

Scaling the reference mesh to a closer size of your own mesh before you copy bone weights works fine, in Outfit Studio anyway.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Guest

[Evangela]

Yes welding is the term. I'd think that you'd see that in the 3d editor because the UVMap would certainly reflect it.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Rasikko

[vicious1182]

Ok, so I tried exporting from Outfit Studio with full precision and have run into a new problem.

 

So here is what the model looks like when exported without full precision

This is how it's supposed to look.

 

Here is what happens when I export with full precision

For some reason it stretches the head (and only the head) into a flat square.

 

Now here's where things get even weirder...If I go and look at the Head Part model before I look at the Actor, the head looks fine. Once I check the Actor however, it not only stretches on the actor, but if I go look at the Head Part again, it's stretched there too now. Further more, if I then go look at a vanilla model and go back to the Head Part, the head is fine again. Anyone experience anything like this. As I said, it only happens with the head and only with full precision turned on in Outfit Studio.

 

Thanks

[vicious1182]

Ok, so here's an update for those that might want to know. Still don't know what was causing the stretching from Outfit Studio, but some of the issue does seem to be with the weighting. I reweighted the little green guy's head and that seam disappeared. I think It might have something to do with overlapping weights because I had some light weight-painting from a different head-bone that was in the same spot. Once I removed the overlap from the intruding bone, the seam went away. Still got some issues with the lizard guy that weighting isn't helping with, but it's getting there.