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Am I the only one seeing this?


migal130

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So after figuring out how to convert some of my old toons last week, I spent several days trying to figure out why their heads seemed to be a lighter shade than their bodies.  I checked my facegeom NIFs and they were fine.  I checked my tint masks and they were also okay (their base color exactly matched the RGB settings of the corresponding skin tone in the CK (you can use SSEedit to see the QNAM lighting and tint layer RGB values).  I tried a number of different texture sets from Oldrim, instead of the ones my characters normally use.  The shading problem persisted.

 

Then I decided to completely remove all mods and just run vanilla SSE.  Check out the neck seam in the screenshot below.

 

post-23801-0-01075800-1479314147_thumb.jpg

That is unmodded Skyrim  SE on my computer.  Am I the only one seeing this?

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It happens in vanilla too, but only under certain light (or lack of it) conditions

 

In a well lite area (outside, in front of the sun) the seam is not noticeable, but under dark/shadowed areas, it's very noticeable.

 

My guess is, either they altered the vertex colors on the body meshes, or, for some reason, the specullar textures (_s) or the subsurface textures (_sk) on the body are not being properly applied (they seem to work well on the faces though)

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It happens in vanilla too, but only under certain light (or lack of it) conditions

 

In a well lite area (outside, in front of the sun) the seam is not noticeable, but under dark/shadowed areas, it's very noticeable.

 

My guess is, either they altered the vertex colors on the body meshes, or, for some reason, the specullar textures (_s) or the subsurface textures (_sk) on the body are not being properly applied (they seem to work well on the faces though)

 

Thank gawd.  I'm not the only one.  I thought I was going nuts.

 

Yes, you are exactly correct.  Not as noticeable in bright sunlight and we are talking about vanilla normal maps.  It also happens with any Oldrim texture set.  This is not a texture/normal map problem.

 

Furthermore, it happens when using either the Oldrim CBBE or UNP bodies.  So, it isn't a body NIF problem.  I did notice that the face has all white vertex colors and the body has no vertex colors, but that's also how it was in Oldrim, so the game should be taking that into account.  Edit:  I just tested with the Has Vertex Colors flag set to no in the facegeom NIF and it made no difference.  The head was still lighter.

 

I was able to get a pretty close match by reducing the NPC's tint mask in Photoshop by 5, but I don't know yet if that number will work across the board for all NPCs created with all the different skin tones.  The NPC tint mask I altered was a Nord female set for skin tone 1.

 

You may be on the right track about specular and subsurface. I've noticed that the bodies seem bone dry and dull, but the heads don't. It wouldn't be a texture path problem. It would be that the new game simply isn't applying those maps like it should.

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You use an old Save from Skyrim right ?

 

Then thats normal, that some NPC looks Strange.

 

Every Named NPC was saved in the Savegame, when you played. When you have an Savegame from OLD Skyrim with Body Mods or something, and you use them on the Skyrim SE without Mods, the Changes of the NPC still in the Savegame.

Your only Chance is to start a NEW Fresh Game ... or

 

Open Console, marked the NPC and type

 

disable

enable

 

With this you will reload the NPC with his Original Data, and then the different Color should be gone.

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You use an old Save from Skyrim right ?

 

Then thats normal, that some NPC looks Strange.

 

Every Named NPC was saved in the Savegame, when you played. When you have an Savegame from OLD Skyrim with Body Mods or something, and you use them on the Skyrim SE without Mods, the Changes of the NPC still in the Savegame.

Your only Chance is to start a NEW Fresh Game ... or

 

Open Console, marked the NPC and type

 

disable

enable

 

With this you will reload the NPC with his Original Data, and then the different Color should be gone.

 

No.  I have never attempted to load one of my old Skyrim game saves which would have had scripts, forms and variables included from 243 mods, the vast majority of which are not available for SSE.  I assumed that would be a very bad idea.

 

Enabling and disabling won't change anything.  Under low light conditions, you will see the head/body mismatch as soon as you start a new game, completely vanilla with zero mods installed.

 

I have heard reports (although not as many) from people who say they haven't noticed it.  Either they haven't looked hard enough, or something external to the game is causing some of us to see it and others not to see it.  It makes me wonder about variation in game settings and video drivers.

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Maybe head and body meshes use different shaders that don't render the same color under low lighting conditions?

 

is it that hard to just check?

30-1-1321543234.jpg

don't know if sse use the same dxt1 msn and crappy textures

 

 

161120120642708875.jpg

 

161120120638406118.jpg

 

161120120636815022.jpg

 

161120120640155614.jpg

 

 

but i doubt the op screen is vanilla sse

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Maybe head and body meshes use different shaders that don't render the same color under low lighting conditions?

 

Possibly.  I don't know enough about shaders to know where to look for a definitive answer on that.

 

I can tell you that the facegen tint values inside an ESP generated by the new CK are mathematically the same values as in the old game, but they are represented differently.  An Oldrim ESP's QNAM lighting represents RGB as float values between 0.0 and 1.0, whereas an SSE ESP represents those same values in the typical fashion, as an int between 0 and 255.  However, when comparing the same character's values in Oldrim verses SSE, the math is correct.  If red was 0.866666 in the old game, it is 221 in the new game, so it appears to be just a case of the game engine being changed in terms of what kind of value it expects in those records.  It is theoretically possible for a float value to have existed in the old game that could not be represented by an int, but none of the vanilla or DLC characters were made that way and the shading mismatch is too significant for it to be off by a fractional amount in a base-255 numbering scheme.

 

I was able to fix it for my own characters by darkening their tint masks manually in Photoshop.  Darker skin tones had to have brightness reduced more than lighter skin tones.  Unfortunately, my characters are currently the only ones in the game that aren't exhibiting a blatant neck seam and fixing all the vanilla characters in the game this way would be an enormous job that will rapidly become worthless as more NPC overhaul mods are converted.  That's why I'm trying to discover the real cause.  I can say with certainty that the new CK is generating the face tint masks as the correct RGB levels, meaning, Photoshop indicates the base color of the tint mask matches the settings in the ESP file.  Aside from that information, I'm stumped.

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but i doubt the op screen is vanilla sse

I deleted my entire data folder before taking that screenshot.

 

The body textures in SSE are identical to Oldrim's body textures. Diffuse, normal, specular and subsurface are literally the same DXT1 files that were included with the old game.

 

Aside from subsurface, the SSE head textures for the new game are different from the old game.  For diffuse and specular, all they did was double resolution.  But, the head normal map is entirely new and it's a different color at the neck seam.

 

Head normal map changed as follows:

 

Old game:  512 x 512, DXT1, normal map baked with minor light source coming from the character's right.  Exhibits many artifacts.

 

New game:  1024 x 1024.  DDS, but not DXT1, DXT3 or DXT5 – a hex editor shows no label other than just DDS.  Normal map baked with a very bright light source coming from the character's front-left.  Exhibits no artifacts.

 

post-23801-0-20584700-1479641851_thumb.jpg

The normal map shading difference alone is enough to explain the neck seam, because Bethesda did not make a new body normal map to match the new head normal map.  The problem is, the neck seam remained even when I tested with three different 3rd party oldrim texture sets.

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because Bethesda did not make a new body normal map to match the new head normal map.  The problem is, the neck seam remained even when I tested with three different 3rd party oldrim texture sets.

 

 

what were you expecting from lazy ass that were showing off an unof patch that would be ready for sse release, instead of putting those fixes in skyrim esm?

 

their crap doesn't matter anyway, there are mods to replace it

 

 

161120013704813714.jpg

harder to see the seam with that

161120021506325893.jpg

collars were made for the same reason

161120021339857062.jpg

 

 

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because Bethesda did not make a new body normal map to match the new head normal map.  The problem is, the neck seam remained even when I tested with three different 3rd party oldrim texture sets.

 

 

what were you expecting from lazy ass that were showing off an unof patch that would be ready for sse release, instead of putting those fixes in skyrim esm?

 

their crap doesn't matter anyway, there are mods to replace it

 

 

161120013704813714.jpg

harder to see the seam with that

161120021506325893.jpg

collars were made for the same reason

161120021339857062.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

So maybe you know how to fix the NPC problems with SOS in Enderal? Here (point 1) and here.

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because Bethesda did not make a new body normal map to match the new head normal map.  The problem is, the neck seam remained even when I tested with three different 3rd party oldrim texture sets.

 

 

their crap doesn't matter anyway, there are mods to replace it

 

 

Yatol, tell me something.  Does it ever get old, adding nothing to so many conversations?

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Migal, I'm seeing the same thing when I do any Facegen and I had a horrific problem with Jenassa whose face ended up being dark brown for some reason.  

 

What I have done to help alleviate "SOME" facegen issues is to RENAME the tintmasks folder to "tinmasksHOLD" before I load up the CK to do any facegen exports.  

 

The creation kit engine doesn't seem to do to well with modded tintmask textures in my experience of exporting about a MILLION heads of NPC's that I personally edit.

 

Hope this helps and thank you for uploading your Housecarls/Bard's mods.  You definitely saved me the time of doing it myself.   :shy:

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So maybe you know how to fix the NPC problems with SOS in Enderal? Here (point 1) and here.

 

 

game don't load the tavern npc head because of his template

some it's because some headparts or the race was edited without regenerating the head

some it's because there's no head nif

 

you can add a bigger mess by using a mod that mess with races

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Yatol, tell me something.  Does it ever get old, adding nothing to so many conversations?

 

 

does it ever get old, creating post about seam when there's over 9000 topics about that (and other things that came back again and again and again)

 

it's always the same problem, and the solution is always the same too

 

if you check sse technical forum

- stats resetting (changing race in showracemenu)

- ctd on merchant (broken item)

- black face (no tintmask)

- crashing when looting (broken item)

- ctd (euh... title don't say enought)

- saving on a horse -> game don't know you are on a horse when you load that save and if you move you start flying somewhere

- no viable alternative at input, there are tutos on the crap kit

well... there's a search function for a reason

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Yatol, tell me something.  Does it ever get old, adding nothing to so many conversations?

 

 

does it ever get old, creating post about seam when there's over 9000 topics about that (and other things that came back again and again and again)

 

it's always the same problem, and the solution is always the same too

 

if you check sse technical forum

- stats resetting (changing race in showracemenu)

- ctd on merchant (broken item)

- black face (no tintmask)

- crashing when looting (broken item)

- ctd (euh... title don't say enought)

- saving on a horse -> game don't know you are on a horse when you load that save and if you move you start flying somewhere

- no viable alternative at input, there are tutos on the crap kit

well... there's a search function for a reason

 

 
I can't find the "Oldrim textures with no seams now have seams in SSE" thread.
 
If you don't play on SSE, and you are not adding anything to this thread, why are you here?
 
Is not like you know more than the rest of us, this problem has even been confirmed by texture mod makers (see skysight skins page, the comment section is filled with fadingsignal trying to solve this issue)
 
This is not an old problem, is a new problem in SSE.
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