Jet Black Skin?

[EquestrianMidnight]

So I had an idea for a character that requires jet black skin, but it seems Racemenu is unable to create such a skin. Moving all sliders down to their lowest point just creates brown, weirdly enough. Could someone, with a good amount of detail, describe a way to maybe create a bodypaint that covers the entire body? That could work as a skin color. I'm concerned it might be too black, but baby steps, eh? Or any other trick (besides purposefully losing too much VRAM :P) to achieve the look?

 

Will also try researching it myself, but hopefully someone way more knowledgable than I am can give a quick answer.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Nexus18306

[TaxiVader]

Hiya.

 

I imagine you'd need to get an Archive Extractor and extract the textures from the .bsa. Then you can find one that is for the race and skin you want to change, open that file in paint.net and darken it. Then you save it in the same place as the original (you'll need to add the file structure), duplicate the in-game texture set and select the newly made texture. Then apply this to the npc.

 

At least that's how I think it's done; I'm about 50% of the way through figuring all that out.

 

Or you could open the texture set in Creation kit and try changing the texture in that for random stuff until you get a good look; that's what I used to do.

[EquestrianMidnight]

Hiya.

 

I imagine you'd need to get an Archive Extractor and extract the textures from the .bsa. Then you can find one that is for the race and skin you want to change, open that file in paint.net and darken it. Then you save it in the same place as the original (you'll need to add the file structure), duplicate the in-game texture set and select the newly made texture. Then apply this to the npc.

 

At least that's how I think it's done; I'm about 50% of the way through figuring all that out.

 

Or you could open the texture set in Creation kit and try changing the texture in that for random stuff until you get a good look; that's what I used to do.

 

Hm... I'm not sure if it's necessary to go into creation kit and such yet. I found that KJ's Tattoos mod has a full body option and while it doesn't really cover the whole body, I've been thinking if there's a way to edit it via some kind of DDS editor like Gimp or something to make it affect the entire body. Will begin testing tomorrow.

[EquestrianMidnight]

I've found one user describe the process like this:

 

"{SlaveTats loverslab}?

That would let you set up, fairly trivially, a full body black tattoo for your character which you could RP as skin color fairly easily.

Although, if you want it to extend to your character's head (and I assume you do) then it is going to be an Oldrim only solution, at least for now. No problem. Don't worry about the NSFW stuff, just get the base mod, create a DDS file that's 512x512 pixels of pure black, and a one entry JSON file to go with it. That way you can get your character as a matt black featureless slab apart from eyes and hair if that's what you have in mind."

Thing is, I'm not experienced with this sort of thing at all, so I'm unsure how to do anything described here. Still, I'll see if I can't figure it out. Also, I don't want the skin to be so dark, you can't see his facial features. So hopefully there will be a way to lighten it up a bit.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Nexus18306

[EquestrianMidnight]

I've found a tutorial for making my own tattoo. See here:

 

"Pick a UV map to work from. Basically, that means finding the skin texture from your favorite body mod. Personally, I use the UNP UV map.

Copy the skin texture into an image editor that supports layers (such as Photoshop or GIMP)

Select the color #444544. That color will be replaced by the user's chosen color when the tattoo is applied. All other colors will be displayed normally.

On a layer above the skin texture, draw your tattoo. Leave the layer background transparent.

Save just the tattoo layer (NOT the skin texture) as a DDS file with a transparent background.

Create a folder called Textures\Actors\Character\slavetats\yourthing somewhere (not actually inside Skyrim's Data folder, yet. Just on the desktop is fine)

Place your DDS file into Textures\Actors\Character\slavetats\yourthing

Create a text file called Textures\Actors\Character\slavetats\yourthing.json containing a tattoo registry for that DDS file (we'll cover that shortly)

Add the Textures folder to a .zip or .7z file"

Thing is, I don't know if this mod works for male characters, so we'll see.

[EquestrianMidnight]

Hmmm. The body mod I use, SAM, has MULTIPLE male body textures. So I'm not entirely sure which one to retexture. Maybe trying just one body texture will do it.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Nexus18306

[EquestrianMidnight]

Bah. I give up. Instead, I'll opt for a Drow-ish color. Hopefully in future Bethesda games, creating any skin color you want will come more easily.

[TaxiVader]

I haven't played with this part, but in Creation Kit you can change or import colors for skin tone. Not sure if this works on the player, but you can also edit the character presets in the same way.