Why Unique Face Texture Don't Show on Unique Player and Follower Mods, etc. and How To Fix It

[Corbaine]

Disclosure:

1. I have no idea what is common knowledge in the modding community and what is not, so if everyone already knows this, then this post can just be deleted.
2. I'm not a modder, so my solution is on the simplistic side, as are my explanations and my understanding of game systems.
3. I'm typing this from memory, so I could be wrong on certain terminology.
4. I successfully created mods that fixed this using both solutions 1 and 2 listed below some time ago, but I lost my files due to a HDD hardware failure. I intended to recreate them, but I'm just not getting around to Fallout 4, so I wanted to share this with the community in case there is some value in this for someone.

 

Part 1 - The Cause:

• In Skyrim, our complexion and our face type options like nose and mouth and eyes, were all handled with sliders.
• In Fallout 4, complexions are tied directly to those same face type options. But not just the complexion - a full facial texture set.
• Example: Nose Handsome 1 has the young male facial texture set associated with it. If you choose it, it applies that full facial texture set on the nose area of the face. It does this on top of the actor's FTST facial texture record.
• If you combined all 7 facial morphs, namely; Forehead, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Neck, Cheeks and Ears, you get a mask that covers the face texture surface completely.
• When no option is chosen for a specific face morph, as excluded in some presets and on some NPC and Follower mods, a default face morph is applied with its associated facial texture set.
• The end result is a system that completely hides FTST-applied facial textures, seemingly because BGS didn't want to include a complexion slider...?

 

Part 2 - The Solution:

• Solution 1: The simplest way to fix this is to edit the Human Race records, and remove the TXST records associated with each face morphs. That means going to the Male Head section of the human race, and deleting the male young TXST below each individual morph, of which there are quite a few. This is right beneath where the 5 male facial textures for the race are listed. The exact same process applies for the Female Head section.
  • Advantage: It removes the game system that stops custom face textures from showing, thus allowing modders to freely create followers or NPCs with custom facial textures.
  • Disadvantage: You lose the ability to apply different complexions to your character during the character creation screen. The shapes of the different face morphs will change, but only the default face texture as indicated in the PC's FTST records will show. A complexion slider would solve this, if such a thing was possible to add.
    
• Solution 2: Creating additional Face Morphs 6, 7, 8, 9, etc. that are associated with their own custom face TXST texture records that match the custom body texture. Note: This can only be done through the Creation Kit, and you are looking at a few hours of work with its clunky interface.
  • Advantage: The game complexion system is left intact.
  • Disadvantage: Having to add custom face morphs for each NPC you want to assign a custom facial texture to. Besides the amount of work involved, it is impossible for multiple modders to achieve the effect in parallel as each one is creating their own instance of the Human Race record table. My Solution was to create 10 Male and 10 Female texture sets, which could be applied universally and be used as a sort of modders resource.
    
    NB: Solution 2 also involves editing an NPC's morph keys to match the newly created face morphs with the custom textures they need to receive. When editing Morph Keys, they must maintain the same order as the original file / mod. If you put eye morph key where a mouth morph key should be, you will see some very...interesting...results.
• Custom Face Textures & CBBE: FTST face records only cover the front half of an NPC's head. The textures on the back of the head are managed through the "Head Rear" headpart and its associated TXST texture set. By default, Fallout 4 sets the Head Rear to use the body textures, and that is fine for vanilla and (if I recall correctly) EVB bodies. With CBBE (and possibly the other body replacers), and additional set of textures are needed - namely the femalebhed texture set. Not all custom textures on the Nexus include these textures, but a set of properly created femalebhed textures are needed to avoid texture seams and discoloration on the back of an actor's head and neck.
  

Part 3 - Compatibility:

• In my testing, NPCs were unaffected by either approach. I didn't get around to testing it exhaustively, so there might be situations were this is not true.
• Solution 1 will only conflict with mods that edit the Human Race, notably (off the top of my head), Looks Menu Customization Compendium (LMCC) and Unique NPCs. Creating patches for these conflicts are very simple.
  
• Solution 2 will conflict with mods that edit the Human Race, and also with mods that edit the NPCs that have received custom face textures and morph keys. This includes mods that edit the Preset NPCs, follower overhauls and even gameplay overhauls such as Horizon and Better Locational Damage, which directly edits the Player actor records for health and starting perk edits. In short, this is a conflict nightmare.

 

Part 4 - Closing Words:

• I hope that the modding community can somehow benefit from this information.
• I intended to release a mod around this, and have all this information on the mod page for everyone to see. With the files gone and having put down Fallout 4, and a lot of time passing without me even looking in the game's direction, I decided posting this here was the best way to proceed.
• As stated in point 4 of the disclosure, I successfully created mods that applied these solutions, so the concept has been tested and does work. It was just not tested exhaustively as I lost the files.

[robotized]

Hiding what I wrote, to keep things clean. Not sure if I'm 100% right about all this stuff.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah, i also noticed this recently. I am experimenting with Skin Override for LooksMenu. When you apply new face texture, it resets the type of all face parts. Depending on the preset, this can change the look noticeably. And i also thought about solution 2. Done that once to test this. Seemed to work. Either way, to fix this, there have to be edits to Human Race. Conflicts with other mods are inevitable. Thanks for mentioning this, might try Solution 1 someday, while experimenting.

 

Edit: Tried Solution 1. I removed all textures from all morphs, silly me. Still less work and less time consuming than solution 2. I might test more. Also tried something you could call possible 3rd solution. Instead of deleting textures from morphs, or adding more morphs with new textures, i was thinking about this complexion slider you talked about. An idea hit me, to use "Extras" inside LooksMenu as a way to "transition" to the unique texture(like the Blemishes or Scars). Still needs editing Human Race, but not touching any morphs, just adding new Face Details, which is much easier. I got to do more testing on that too.

 

Edit2: After some testing on solution 1, removing only the young texture is a good option. Most named NPCs have a texture assigned for the face. If that texture is "young", they should still use it. If the texture assigned is "mid age" or "wrinkled", there is almost no chance that they have type 1 morphs. NPCs that don't have texture assigned will probably use the default for "Human Race", which is the "hero" texture set. I looked at some raider faces and they rather use type 3 or type 4 morphs for some of the face parts. For the player character, solution 1 means you will have to adjust all morphs to type 1, and will use the unique texture assigned(by a mod or Skin Override) without mixing it with the "young" texture.

Extras in LooksMenu are not appropriate to apply unique face texture, speculars of the head texture wouldn't show for me. However, new normals can be applied. So if you want to apply wrinkles to your unique face texture, i think it is possible. All you need is add new group in "Tints". Then add inside new Face Details(or perhaps wrinkles?). Set the slot that is used to "Multiply". For textures are needed the normal with wrinkles and a solid color(white) diffuse texture. And for the options - "is chargen detail".

 

Edit3: Cleaned my Data folder a bit. Installed Unique Player, but the face texture doesn't show with solution 1. So the texture set for the face from Unique Player mod must be used as a replacer for the young texture. That feels almost the same as just downloading and installing new face texture. In conclusion i'd say that solution 1 is best used in combination with Skin Override. You can apply new face textures with or without a body texture, and when the type/morph of the face parts resets, then you can adjust your preset again by selecting all type 1 morph and matching their %.

 

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by robotized

[robotized]

Recently I went back to the idea of using Extras to apply face texture. I think I was successful, although I haven't done any extensive testing on it.

 

Screenshot 1 - Added "Face Texture" and "Age" in the Extras menu.

Screenshot 2 - Using Valkyr face in the first slot of Face Texture.

Screenshot 3 - Using Oni face in the second slot.

Screenshot 4 - Valkyr face with vanilla "Weathered" normals.

Screenshot 5 - Valkyr with markings, dirt and scars.

Screenshot 6 - Mix of vanilla base texture and Valkyr @50% with some makeup.

 

Edit1: It seems that with this, different textures can be mixed, as long as percentage stays below 100%. That goes for all 3 texture types, not just the diffuse. So, you can mix vanilla with Valkyr at 50%, like on the screenshot, and then add Oni face(or other mod). If you don't like the result, you can reduce Oni face to 75% or even 50 %.

 

Edit2: Found a tutorial how to use LooksMenu's Tint API. Following that tutorial and examples, I remade this. No more editing to vanilla records, it is possible to use it with LMCC without any patching.

 

Edit3: I released this as a mod - Unique Face Texture. So far, no issues reported from users. A few more words on mixing the textures. It works only if you reduce the % of the texture @ slot 1. So it is really best to use only one texture on a character. Same is valid for the Age category. But you can still lower % to reduce the wrinkle effect if you want to.

Edited February 3, 2020 by robotized