Saving Face

[Gawdzila]

Hello modders, I'm in a bit of a pickle.

You see, I have two mods I'd like to combine. One of them assigns custom races to companions (specifically Cass and Veronica), and another one has a couple of faces for them that I'd really, really like to use. The problem is, that second mod also has a whole bunch of other stuff attached to it that I don't want to use, and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to copy the face data from it to the custom race mod.

 

I've tried simply copying the Facegen Data in FNVEdit from one to the other, but it doesn't work; I seem to just get generic Caucasian faces for both of them. Then I read somewhere that the race's face data influences things too, so I copied the race data from one to the other in FNVEdit as well, but that still didn't work. Then I decided to bite the bullet and just copy down all the values from the face I liked in the GECK and manually input them, but the slider values won't stay put! Every time I change one, it changes to something wildly different as soon as I adjust another slider.

 

So, here I am, bothering all you fine folks to share your wisdom. How can I go about shoplifting a face from another mod (for my own personal use of course)?

I could make the new race entries if I had to, if that would help, but I fear I will never get the faces right in a million years if I have to try and do it myself with sliders.

[JimboUK]

Cass and Veronica will need to be switched to the race of the face you want to put on them, if the face you want is from another custom race then you can load up that custom race in the GECK and switch Cass and Veronica to it, then you can do the face data with FNVEdit. You won't need the mod that originally changed Cass and Veronica either because their changes will be in mod you just altered. I hope that makes sense, I'm not the greatest at explaining things.

 

As always back up any esp you want to alter in case things go horribly wrong.

[Gawdzila]

Thanks for the reply! :woot:

 

Okay so, here's the thing... the mod that has the faces I want also uses it's own custom race for them.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you (very possible), if I switch their races to the one with the face I want, even if I copy the Face Data in FNVEdit to my new plugin, I'll still need to include the mod I got the faces from as a master since it is also the one adding the races for those faces. That wouldn't be a problem, except unfortunately it also adds a whole bunch of other stuff and so I don't want to include it. I tried loading up both ESMs and creating a new plugin by opening the character records and just switching their races over to new ones, in hopes that they'd keep their faces, but it just resets them to default :-/

 

Lemme see if I can convey things more clearly.

"Cass and Veronica redesigned" has the faces I want to use, but on it's own custom race.

Is there any way I can either create a race, or use one from a different mod, such that I can use those faces without having to load up the redesigned mod itself?

[JimboUK]

Apologies for the late reply, my game has fallen apart and I've been busy getting a back up up to date.

 

If I'm understanding what you're trying to do then what you need to do is forget the one with the already designed Cass and Veronica faces, in fact you should disable that. Load up the one with the race and face you want in the GECK (including any masters), set that esp as active, now open both Cass and Veronica and switch them to that custom race, change hair ect and then save. Now you can use FNVEdit to copy the data you want onto Cass and Veronica in the esp you just saved, it should work because now they're the same race as the face you want to put on them.

 

I wish I could explain it better, I very often switch companions to custom races so I can customise them, it simple to do once you know how, it's a bugger to explain though.

[Gawdzila]

If I'm understanding what you're trying to do then what you need to do is forget the one with the already designed Cass and Veronica faces, in fact you should disable that. Load up the one with the race and face you want in the GECK (including any masters), set that esp as active, now open both Cass and Veronica and switch them to that custom race, change hair ect and then save.

 

Don't worry about the delay, I don't expect anyone to drop everything to fix my problems, hehe.

 

Anyway, the problem here is that the mod with the faces I want assigns them to a custom race that is part of an .esm that I don't want to use. So I can't use the race that the faces are built on unless I want to depend on that .esm (which I don't).

 

I tried loading up the mod with the faces that I want and then switching their race to a race that isn't part of the .esm that I don't want to use, but it just resets their appearance which sorta defeats the purpose. I also tried re-creating the race in a new esp, assigning Veronica to it, and then copying the face data over in FNVE, but that didn't seem to work either. :confused: It might have been that I just didn't get the FaceGenData for the race exactly right. I think I have an idea, though...

Edited January 14, 2013 by Gawdzila

[Gawdzila]

Ok! Your post gave me some ideas and I think I've found something that will work!

 

I opened the .esm that has everything I need (but that I don't want to use), and made duplicates of the custom race it is using for Cass and Veronica. Then I edited those races to my heart's content (custom models, skins, etc) but without touching the face AT ALL. Then, when I switch Veronica and Cass' race in the GECK it keeps the face intact because the face of the new race is identical to the old. However, the new race is not part of the old .esm!

 

So then I save the duplicated races along with the NPC/face records as a new .esp, open it in FNVEdit, and use the "Clean Masters" function. This removes masters to which the esp is not linked anymore; since the races I created don't exist in the original .esm it removes the dependence and, ta da! Didn't even have to copy the face data over! :woot:

 

Thanks for your input and advice, nice to have this figured out :)

[JimboUK]

That's one way of doing it, glad you got it working. It's good to create a custom race for every companion, you can edit them anyway you want then and not have to worry about breaking other companions.