[LE] Changing NPC Hairstyles

[Blaubeerchen27]

So, as the title suggests, I'm in the process of changing around some NPC hairs. Or rather, I'm trying to.

First off, I'm using a mod which changes facial features and hairs of a handful NPCs (this one), there's 2 NPCs in there I'd like to change only the hairstyles of (and keeping the face changes made by the mod). I'm using the mod itself as the file I'm writing these changes on (as it is the last one in my LO to change the NPCs in question in any way).

The hairs I'd like to assign to these NPCs are all from KS Hairdos. I'm using MO2 and every program is up-to-date. The only other mod I'm using that makes visual changes to NPCs is "Tempered Skin" for both sexes.

 

So far I've tried:

1 - Opening the NPC in CK (using the mod as active file, loading KS as well), changing the Hairstyle in the HeadParts section, creating a new .nif from it in my overwrite. This results in a brown face and no changed hair.

 

2 - Doing the same as in my first try, afterwards converting the old .nif (from the mod) and the newly created one to LE, merging them with NifMerge and converting them back to the SE format. The merged .nif gets placed in the meshes folder from the mod, the overwrite directory gets wiped (in case the files might've conflicted). This results, again, in a brown face and no changes to the hairstyle.

 

3 - Completely ditching the CK, opening SSEdit, adding KS Hairdos as a master to the mod (I figured this might've been the problem in the first place), changing the hairstyles in the respective actors section in the mod within SSEdit alone. This results in no visible changes at all, no brown face but also no new hairstyle either.

 

4 - Same as 3, but afterwards opening the mod in CK, wanting to change the Hairstyle in HeadParts as well, realizing the right one is already written there, opening the game again and getting brown faces BUT the right hairsytle.

 

I'm honestly at my wits end here, as anything I try seems to result in a brown face. Originally I thought it might have something to do with the mod, but after trying a character who doesn't get changed (Ancano) I still get the same results. I think I'm missing something vital here, but browsing various threads hasn't helped so far. I've read some thing about NifSkope, but since I ONLY want to change the hairstyles, I'm not sure if that's the right program to use. I assume NifMerge might've been the right idea, but it didn't give me any results (I was merging everything as the only difference was the hair).

 

Any form of help would be hugely appreciated!

 

Edit: Hallelujah, I did it! The trick was basically repeating Number 4 and creating a new HeadMesh with Ctrl + F4, BUT flagging KS Hairdos as an .esm beforehand. For some reason not a single tutorial mentions this step (probably because most people use Apachii and that already comes as an .esm), I found the solution in a random YouTube comment. I'll leave this post here, maybe it will help someone with a similar problem some day.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Blaubeerchen27