SSE Help me edit an existing NPC. PLEASE.

[Katarsi]

First off, Creation Kit is garbage.

 

Right, moving on :happy:

 

I don't want to create a custom NPC, I wish to modify an existing one - and only the head at that.

So I thought, I see face mods everywhere on the continent of Skyrim SE here on Nexus, it shouldn't be too hard, right?

...

 

Did I mention that CK is garbage?

 

I opened CK properly. I checked master files and the files containing hairs and eyes which I wished to add to the NPC. I waited and endured the gush of error screens. I checked the desired NPC among the Actors, I made the changes (I cleaned his face from dirt, tweaked facial features only slightly, changed hair and eyes, and I saw all the changes I made on the preview screen. I hit Save, I named the .esp, I hit Ctrl+F4 to export FaceGen, the works. I fired up the game and the NPC in question had black face.

 

I Googled for hours, tried several different "solutions", but the same thing happens over and over again, with varying results regarding hair and eyes; sometimes I see them, sometimes I don't, but the face is always black.

I'm a persistent person. I've been doing this since noon, and now it's...you don't wanna know what time it is.

 

How do you people manage to do this?!?!? I swear I honestly admire Skyrim modders.

 

I don't want to create a custom follower with their own set of skills, inventory, armor and whatnot, I just wish to make some modifications to an existing NPC's face. Can someone help me, step-by-step? Perhaps it will also help others who are having the same or similar troubles.

[thumbincubation]

Well, I don't know why it's giving you trouble, but I did notice something that brought questions to mind.

 

You mentioned a gush of error screens. In the Oldrim Ck, I would have to wait for various separate errors to announce themselves, dismiss them, and then I could move on. In CK64, I get that one box (which I minimized and hid, and have ever since ignored) with a list of errors, rather than individual error boxes. I'm wondering if you are in the Oldrim CK by chance?

[cumbrianlad]

Just a thought.

 

Are you testing on a clean save point (one that has never seen your mod)? If not earlier changes in the mod could get stuck in the save so the game engine doesn't know which version to be using. Also when testing disable all auto saves and never save manually.

 

Another question regarding testing is your profile. Whilst you can test with other mods active, you have to be really careful. Ideally test on a profile that has nothing other than USLEEP active.

 

One mod that commonly causes the black face bug in people's mods is Hair Replacer. If you've got that active it has a very good chance of screwing up your NPC. It doesn't even matter where it is in your load order... it'll still mess things up. There could be others but that one's a big culprit. Anything that makes adjustments to face parts could be problematic.

 

Other than that, I'm stuck. You seem to be doing what I always do and it should work.

 

P.S. Creation Kit is fantastic... it improves your powers of swearing beyond what you thought humanly possible! Seriously, though it is a great tool. It just takes a lot of learning. (Learning patience, mostly. Patience.......................

 

 

 

 

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....is a virtue.)

[Katarsi]

@thumbincubation

I have CK for Special Edition, no worries (although I checked just in case). There's Yes to all option for warning screens and there's another screen that lists errors and yeah, I just minimize it but I check often just to be amused with the crazy number of warnings (it varies from 11 to infinity). I try not to divulge sense from those errors because it's a rabbit hole :geek:

 

@cumbrianlad

Hmm, a curious notion about the save. I'll try to revise that. Should I make a hard save? I caught the perfect opportunity when the NPC in question is just standing there, so I can clearly see him whenever I load the save.

As for the Hair Replacer, I had it at some point but it was removed long ago (didn't really use it). I'm careful when I remove mods.

 

I also tried to create a detailed face in RaceMenu and then export it in .npc format, but CK didn't import all the details, so I kinda got the same result as if I tweaked it there in CK. Oh yes, it's a fantastic tool. I love it to bits :dance:

 

Also, I'm sensing a culprit... When I'm putting on a custom hair (Apachii), it gives a warning about empty .tri files in FaceGen...or something along those lines. It's not open currently, I'm venting my brain. Maybe the hair is messing up everything? Because, when I imported the .npc face I previously created in RaceMenu, the hair was some random vanilla instead of what I chose.

More suggestions?

 

EDIT:

Ooh, I have a new issue. When I switch to full body preview in CK, the facial dirt comes back - even though it's turned off. This happens when I import the .npc face from RaceMenu. When I'm editing it from scratch (without importing), it still switches to dirt, but when I click on the dirt option it disappears. Well, I have no way of knowing if the dirt actually sticks to the face no matter what I do, because the face is black in-game.

And one particular error shows up every time I fire up this NPC in editor: MaleHead.nif: MaleHeadIMF is missing a facegen tint/detail map. There is something definitely missing on his face when I load the game... Like tint.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Katarsi

[cumbrianlad]

Some mods can screw your Skyrim even if you remove them, but in my experience hair replacer doesn't do that, it doesn't even need to be removed, just disabled and the black face bug it causes disappears.

 

if I was you, I'd try to eliminate this sort of thing as an issue by creating a new SSE game profile. Do you use nexus mod manager? If so, just create a new profile with no mods other than USLEEP, start a new character (without your mod active in the profile) and save at your first opportunity. Use this as your game testing save. If you need to encounter nasty enemies to get to your NPC just use TGM (toggle God Mode) in the console. I use save game points mid-play which people say is a no-no but it doesn't do any harm as long as you never save or auto save while testing and never have an esp active that may conflict with your mod.

 

That your save has the NPC in front of you shouldn't be a problem, but then again I've never tried this and all my NPCs are my own, not modded vanilla characters.

 

The other thing you could do, but it's a bit more of a pain, is to verify your local game files in steam. This should sort out some cock-ups in the skyrim files that could be a cause. just be aware that this will probably reset any changes you made to the Skyrim ini files, such as bEnableMultipleMasters=1 and bEnableaudio=0. You could need to edit the files again or simply save a copy of your edited version and replace it after steam has verified local files.

 

Also, have you cleaned your esm files in SSEedit? You should really do that before making any mod. There's a sticky thread somewhere on nexus telling you how to do this. You could also check out your own esp in SSEedit to see if any forms are causing a problem.

 

Sorry to be giving more questions than answers but I'm racking my brain trying to think where the problem could lie.

 

It seems like you're trying all sorts (not picking fault there) but you really shouldn't need to be touching the race menu. What you were describing first is the way to do it.

 

hope some of this helps. SSEedit is my favourite tool for correcting the blunders I inevitably make over a session of a few hours!

[Katarsi]

cumbrianlad, thank you for helpful guidelines :thumbsup: Questions are good, I'm always open for suggestions and a push in the right direction.

 

Yeah, my game is cleaned through SSEEdit, don't worry. And I managed to get the face to work, but not how I initially wanted.

I downloaded an existing mod of Brynjolf's visuals and tweaked it in CK. I had to remove other things that came with that mod in SSEEdit and I scoured the meshes and textures folders, but I got it to work!

 

I'm still a bit frustrated that I couldn't manage to create my own .esp for the NPC head. Thanks for warning me about the RaceMenu thing, I'll avoid doing that from now on.

 

Also, I use Vortex. Ever since I started playing Skyrim on PC, I've never used any other mod manager, and I think it's doing well. After making changes in CK, I hit "deploy mods" in Vortex and it updates everything. I also connected it with SSEEdit, BodySlide, FNIS and TOOL, so it's all in one place.

 

Regarding the issue of facial dirt: I've discovered that while it's usually visible in CK even if you remove it, in-game it doesn't actually appear.

 

I'll keep exploring my options and I'll keep in mind to create a fresh "testing save" without other mods, the next time I get to experimenting.

[cumbrianlad]

Pleased to know you've got something working. Seems like your set up's good. I'll take a look at vortex myself.

 

I'd really like to know the answer to the Brynjolf problem myself now, though... you've got me curious. I'll modify him myself in a little test mod and see if I get the same issue. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Edit: just finished tweaking Brynjolf and exporting face gen data. I used a save that hadn't seen the mod and Brynjolf was there with new hairstyle, beard and eyebrows but no black face bug. I didn't use a save where I was anywhere near Brynjolf or Riften. I don't know if that makes a difference but all I can say is that it worked fine.

 

Your original issue remains a mystery.

[TitanZaneJulien]

Hello, I am an Semi-Exprienced creation kit / mods user that has a simular problem, I have my recorder follower's face ruined, all because i wished to change her hair style before beginning Dawnguard mission, i checked all my in-use mods along with the masterfiles and hair replacer, it was a mistake that now i learned from and grew, but i checked my recorder main BSA file as an active, which means all my saves will be inserted in this file, whenever i create a mod/file, it deplucates the follower, and i doubt if my changes have been made and edit in the game, so i tried putting the follower i wish to edit into an active one, and sadly, unfurtunatly, maybe accitendally saved it, which might ruin the files, and i think my creation kit resetted the specific face editing in the mod, SADLY, but i made a mistake, and learned :) .....HELP!! (forgive my rusty english, it has been long i admit~ ^^)

[Katarsi]

Hello, I am an Semi-Exprienced creation kit / mods user that has a simular problem, I have my recorder follower's face ruined, all because i wished to change her hair style before beginning Dawnguard mission, i checked all my in-use mods along with the masterfiles and hair replacer, it was a mistake that now i learned from and grew, but i checked my recorder main BSA file as an active, which means all my saves will be inserted in this file, whenever i create a mod/file, it deplucates the follower, and i doubt if my changes have been made and edit in the game, so i tried putting the follower i wish to edit into an active one, and sadly, unfurtunatly, maybe accitendally saved it, which might ruin the files, and i think my creation kit resetted the specific face editing in the mod, SADLY, but i made a mistake, and learned :smile: .....HELP!! (forgive my rusty english, it has been long i admit~ ^^)

 

You should never mess with mods that affect followers/NPCs mid-game. It's more trouble than worth. Also, editing custom followers isn't recommended if you're only semi-experienced in using Creation Kit. You also need to know how to work with NifSkope and texture files.

 

If you wish to recover your save, I suggest re-installing Recorder mod and cleaning your save with Fallrim Tools (Resaver).

 

As for how to properly edit NPC's head (including hair), this guide is excellent and helped me learn how to do it without fail.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Katarsi

[TitanZaneJulien]

KatarsiTheCaringHeartedWhoReplied, on 06 Dec 2019 - idk when PAM, said:

You should never mess with mods that affect followers/NPCs mid-game. It's more trouble than worth. Also, editing custom followers isn't recommended if you're only semi-experienced in using Creation Kit. You also need to know how to work with NifSkope and texture files.

If you wish to recover your save, I suggest re-installing Recorder mod and cleaning your save with Fallrim Tools (Resaver).

As for how to properly edit NPC's head (including hair), this guide is excellent and helped me learn how to do it without fail.

I Spoke:
Well, You know us humans, We learn after making the whole mistakes most of the times, wondering if its our criousity that outstrip our wisdom to think lol~

I simply kept Recorder's loose files, deleted her BSA mod (Used to open file location, delete the BSA file in order for skyrim to launch with the mod enabled, now with this important looking file, recorder seems to finally take the files back, only 3/5 atleast, had to keep the other two in her inventroy :P) So, I replaced the BSA "mod" with the SE version BSA mode (Never knew there was an SE version, THANKS MISTAKE! with the SE version of the mod, skyrim launches with the BSA file with no problem! :)) ) entered and-WOW, her hair is red OO i installed the Recorder customizer to fix this, aaaand with this, i end my problem, Truly you cant tell how grateful i am for your kindhearted support, truly im thankful!! rn im figuring out how to make skyrim launch "Improved eyes mod" with the "SBT beautiful followers - Serana V.2_2" if you want to contact me perhaps, Discord is Zane Julien#3241 because they dont seem to notify me here of your reply, my deep appologies for the late ; ;