AFT transformations (werebeast/vamp/vamp lord) and mismatched/missing face/body textures

[inrn8tur3]

First off, this is a solution topic not a need help thread. I read the forum rules, love the nexus community and the mods that are available, first time poster though. Hopefully I'm doing this right.

Second, the reason for this post is a/the FIX that I found to using Amazing Follower Tweak's transform follower with a custom follower mod that I made-

The symptoms I was experiencing before the fix:

missing vampire lord textures

mismatched head textures/facegen issues

problems with outfit management after returning to normal form after vamp lord transformation

The various things I noticed while troubleshooting MY MOD (I never blamed AFT for this problem, as it seems to work fine on my vanilla followers):

Regardless of race, if a custom skin was applied to the follower then the transformation texture was missing.

If using a custom race, the facegen would not apply correctly leading to dark facial textures and a gross neck seam.

Modifying my custom .esp was not having an effect on the issues of dark facial textures/neck seams.

and a few other miscellaneous issues-

A little digging into how AFT seems to perform the transformation led me to believe that it would work fine on default races ONLY. A little digging into the specifics of those in the CK and I started to notice every default race uses presets, not custom skins on the actors themselves. Also I assumed that once the transformation was done per AFT's scripting, the change was permanent for the follower in AFT's operations, hence why my custom mod follower refused to fix facegen issues after my edits in CK. All these things in mind, the following is what I did to FIX the problem (as far as I've tested it at least).

1. For my custom follower, instead of using a custom skin I instead created an entirely new custom race with the defaults as my custom follower's appearance. Few color forms here, textures there, armoraddons etc. (all pretty basic stuff for creating a standalone follower), and I had my new custom follower's race as a means to set the appearance without using a custom skin. IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE ON THIS (I found out the trial and error way). Make sure the new race is not marked as playable or you'll hate yourself on the racemenu every time you start a new game or edit your appearance (I just don't like having loose ends make it look like I didn't know what I am doing). ALSO make sure you select a morph race and armor race, otherwise your appearance won't look right in game, and armors will not show on your character even if you're wearing them.

**example** my follower is modeled after a DarkElf. Copied DarkElfRace, changed the ID to a new unique, and changed the options for the things mentioned above.

2. Once you've created the custom race, select the follower that you're going to apply it to. If you've done everything right when you change the follower's race to the custom race, the preview pane should have no changes. If somethings changes...congratulations, the CK just showed you what you missed or messed up.

3. Assuming your follower looks the correct way you expect (with Skin showing "none") then save, and export the new facegen data for the follower (select the follower in actors and hit CTRL+F4). We're done in CK. Now for the hard/annoying part.

**Depending on where you are in your game, if you haven't done the transformation through AFT yet, congrats you should be done. Apply the transformation and you should have no issues with your follower's beast form texture missing, or facegen tint issues.

If you're like me and you don't want to lose the progress you made while dealing with the texture/facegen issues, hooray, it's a little bit of work, lol.

In order for AFT to properly script the transformation for your follower, AFT needs to be reset. WARNING: resetting AFT works, but is a reset at it's base. After numerous trial and errors this is the (easiest) best way I can describe to do it.

4. I cleared the inventories of every follower managed by AFT. It was the best way to ensure nothing was lost during the reset. This included any outfit management inventories as well, just threw them in a chest to reapply after AFT's reset was complete.

5. Used My Home Is Your Home (MYIYH) to manage all my followers (I only have 12 at this point in the game) into one exact spot for easy retrieval after the reset. Basically put them all in my player home that I'm using so they wouldn't all wander back to their starting locations after resetting AFT.

6. After ensuring I wouldn't lose track of anybody, and they all had empty inventories, I threw down the reset on AFT. It completely unloaded all the assets (as expected) and instructed me to save which I did.

7. Next, I HAD TO DISABLE my custom follower's .esp prior to reloading that save in order to reset the facegen on the custom follower. Only the one that I had previously transformed with AFT, but I had to do this. Do not skip this or it will all be for naught.

8. After acknowledging the missing .esp and reloading the save after AFT's reset, I allowed AFT to completely load up and then saved again.

9. I then initiated the custom follower's .esp and reloaded the game and the most recent save.

10. Traveled to where my custom follower was loaded back into my game and bam! facegen was fixed, follower was exactly how I expected them (default appearance). So far so good. Got bit by Serana, waited until I had received Embrace, and used it on my custom follower to turn them into a vampire lord. Great success! No missing textures/facegen issues, the eyes turned, she received her powers, AFT once again allows health based transformations in combat, everything is working exactly how I wanted it to!

 

If you have any questions, get lost in this, or encounter an issue (It's possible I left something out) please shoot me a message. I love this game, I love this modding community, and I just want everyone to have the best experience possible. I would not expect a single mod author to incorporate these changes into their mod, especially when you only have to perform it for the one/few followers you intend to transform on your game. And as I said earlier, if you haven't initiated a transform with AFT it is by and far way easier to be in front of the problem then behind it after AFT has ran those scripts. BUT, as best I can tell if AFT did it any other way it would be extremely buggy. I appreciate the fact it only took an amateur modder like myself about 3 days of trial and error to hammer out the issue, find a workaround, incorporate into my game, and find a way I didn't have to scrap the playthrough and start over. I owe that to AFT's amazing authors and I recognize that.

 

Before I go, a little sidenote. I did notice that if I transformed my follower first to a vampire, and then a vampire lord, I got extremely dark textures. I blame that on dawnguard (best I can tell) and not AFT. I believe it's the game adding a second layer of tinting to the overlay via ingame scripts being used by AFT for the transform, no workaround that I can find. So if you're going to transform a follower, make sure you're sure of where they are going to.

 

Thanks again, happy modding and happier playing!

iNrN8tur3