Floating head???

[AyamePasse]

I'm not talking about heads walking around with no bodies. >.< Last night, I created a copy of one of my races, but did not like the outcome. I deleted the copy and restored my race to its original esp. Then this morning, I decided to try again. I made a few alterations to a texture and head mesh, added them (alongside other things) to a new copy of that race, and in the FaceGen Data tab, its floating like six feet above her hair, eyes, ears, and mouth; when she blinks, her eyelids stretch all the way down to her eyes, way below the head. ^^; Ingame, her race isn't even LISTED, but the one I duplicated it from still is.

 

I tried deleting the copy AGAIN, restoring the old esp and restarting CS. I re-duplicated the race, added just the head and texture, same problem. I tried adding an OLD mesh that worked last night, same problem. I tried adding my new head to a completely different race made by someone else, just to test it... same problem. I tried deleting the head's skeleton in Blender, importing a new one, and adding THAT to the race, same problem. Could it have something to do with the egm and tri files? I didn't make any changes to them because I don't know HOW; my head mesh is altered from a head06 variation, I don't even know how to MAKE egm and tri files. :sad: But I tried copying said files from the original head into my folder alongside one of my meshes that worked last night (I.E. copies of both the mesh AND egm/tri files that worked last night) and STILL have the same problem. D: I'm at a loss...

[DrakeTheDragon]

If you take a close look into the NiTriShapes in NifSkope, you'll see that head meshes have a "non-applied" translation of a certain amount upwards. The head mesh appears at the proper location, above your shoulders, but the internal position of each vertex is still close around the origin. This is so the EGM and TRI morphs from FaceGen can be applied to the mesh. They're stored as offsets from the original position of the vertex inside the file and the game interpolates between the original position and the offset according to the FaceGen slider setting. The connection between the vertices and the offsets is controlled by their index in a list of vertices, the so-called vertex-order. That's why count and order of vertices in the meshes to be morphed "must not" be changed ever, or this connection will be lost and the morphs will offset different vertices making the mesh literally "explode".

 

I guess what happened to your mesh is somehow the translation got appplied or it was exported at this height out of the modeling app but the non-applied translation upwards is still added to it, thus it's at twice the height as usual now. That's why the blinking eyelids move the whole way down to where they actually should be, down to where the TRI file dictates plus the non-applied offset upwards. It's a matter of fact that head meshes can't be imported from or exported into NIF directly for various reasons. One being the vertices getting resorted on im- and export and thus the connection between the NIF and the EGM/TRI files getting destroyed. Maybe you experienced another one, a mix-up of the non-applied translation with a real offset.