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Off color heads for mod added NPCs


Ragoh

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Heya, I've been looking all over for a fix for a not so significant but very annoying glitch I keep finding on NPCs added by mods. Their heads are usually a few shades darker/lighter or a different color altogether than the rest of their bodies. Just those NPCs though, I've never seen this happen to vanilla characters. I've tried a few fixes that didn't work and I'd love to find one that does. The female characters use CBBE V3 and the males use Better Males - Favored Soul and I also have Apachii hair installed, but not for NPCs. Be appreciated if someone can show me a mod that works, or a fix that will help or at the very least make it less noticeable.
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The quick and dirty

  1. In game, make a note of the NPCs name
  2. Locate the mod(s) which provide the custom NPC(s)
  3. Load one of the mods into the Creation Kit
  4. In the Object Window go to Actors - Actor
  5. In the right hand side, click on the column header called Name to sort the entries by name
  6. Scroll down till you find the NPC in question.
  7. Highlight their entry then press the key combo CTRL+F4
  8. A box will pop up asking if you want to export face gen data, agree to do so
  9. Another box will pop up saying that it is done.
  10. Exit the Creation Kit without saving.
  11. Go back into the game and check out that NPC
  12. Skintone should be correct.
  13. Repeat for all other NPCs

 

More steps for the perfectionist


  1.  
  2. You'd then reopen CK and open the actor record for the NPC
  3. Switch to the Character Gen Parts tab
  4. Check each DDS file in the Face Tint Layers box for their RGB values in Face Tinting Colors box
  5. Any entry that is not 255,255,255 you need to locate either from the games BSA file or from whatever face mod you may be using -- note don't do skintone.dds
  6. Then comes the fun part -- Open a image editor that can handle DDS files
  7. Pick a layer, send white to alpha channel
  8. Make a new transparent layer and flood fill it with the corresponding RGB value from the CK
  9. Merge the color with the now black & transparent layer
  10. Send black to alpha channel
  11. so you are left with transparent and the correct color.
  12. repeat for all layers
  13. navigate to skyrim/data/textures/actors/character/facegendata/facetint/modname.esp -- where modname is the name of the mod you extracted the face gen data from for the npc in question.
  14. open the dds file there.
  15. decide whether you will reduce or increase image sizes if any are different
  16. then copy/paste the various transparent color images into the skin tone dds file from the CK output.
  17. When all done, save or export it (depending upon program) and overwrite the existing dds file from the CK output
    Note: the dds file used by the game can be any size but it must remain uncompressed or it won't work
     

The quick & dirty might be sufficient for you.... perfectionists might want to go the extra mile :P

Edited by IsharaMeradin
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Arf, I was hoping I wouldn't have to go through the CK to fix it. I don't have enough RAM to run Skyrim with the CK installed so I had to delete everything the CK placed in my installation folder. Thanks for thetip though, I'll remember it for when I make a few upgrades to the machine.
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Found your tips while looking for something else...SO glad I did! This will be a great help in my modding attempts. Thanks for being so clear and concise!

Your final note about compressed textures solved a few of my problems already!

 

Thank you very much!

Not all textures are uncompressed only the face gen data generated by the CK are uncompressed that I know of. Many other textures can be compressed.

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