Neck seam baked in the save, any way to fix it?

[Wolfstorm]

Some time ago I've made four imperial followers, but did a mistake with the color of one of them in the CK. After merging the face data, I played for a while, and when he got naked due to the iAFT horse bug, I could see a neck seam line in him.
After checking in CK, I noticed the color had a mismatch with the face. So I put the right values in the esp (the ones from racemenu), and remerged the face data.

Now its fixed, but only if I load a old save game, before I recruited him. But I played many hours after the recruitment.

If I unload the esp, resave and reload with it again, the neck seam also disappears, since I would have to recruit them again... but the horses they bought have no owner and lays abandoned in the middle of the road. Also iAFT would not work with these followers anymore, as it still references the previous version.

 

The neck seam just baked in the save. It is fixed if I load a old save, but then I would have to play everything again. If I unload and do a clean save, the horses have no owner, and iAFT dont work anymore.

I tried xEdit but didnt found any way to change the save file there. Fallrim tools also could not be used, since it didnt detect any unattached instance.

I tried all the console commands available: recycleactor, disable and enable, resetAI, setnpcweight, none of them fixed the issue. The last one reseted the face, and when I put it back again, the tint mismatch reappeared.

 

Is it possible to manipulate the ess file to change the body instance to the correct tint? Can I do this in xEdit? If so, how?

Before anyone says, this is not a gap, but a seam line, caused by textures, not meshes. The weight is correct.

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Wolfstorm

[anjenthedog]

FWIW,, there's a tutorial that was posted a month ago or so about fixing neck seams. Sorry I can't provide a link but I'm pretty sure it was here on Nexus. Afaik it was presented as a mod. (PS> it *might have been on LL, but I'm pretty certain it was here)

[Algabar]

What you can try:

 

1. open the console

2. click on your follower

3. type "disable", followed by ENTER (Don't worry - your follower will disappear. That's part of the process.)

4. Dont' move your mouse! Type "enable", again followed by ENTER

5. (Hopefully) profit

 

This is not guaranteed to work, but from my experience it fixes most isues with NPCs and data baked into a save game. Practically, this forces the game to "re-render" the NPC based on the current data.

[JimmyRJump]

A neck seam is never baked into a save. You changed body textures after a certain save without doing away with the older install and when you go back to an earlier save, your character gets loaded with his former assets.

[Algabar]

A neck seam is never baked into a save. You changed body textures after a certain save without doing away with the older install and when you go back to an earlier save, your character gets loaded with his former assets.

This is true for neckseams caused by texture mismatch. But head/body discoloration can also occur because the stats of a certain NPC were changed. Things like the skin colour or the weight of an NPC CAN get baked into the save. If you have installed a mod that gives skin colour x or weight y to a certain NPC and you change this mod during your playthrough, you can encounter discolorations (in the case of skin colour) or neck gaps (in the case of NPC weight). I think exactly this could have happend here.