Gunners/Raiders bodies question

[kraoro]

After playing the game for a while, I've noticed that Gunners seem to have two varieties, those that use the "clean" base[gender]body mesh and texture, and those that use the the dirty base[gender]bodydirty mesh and texture, otherwise known as the "raider" body. So my question is, would it be possible to have Gunners use a third, different body and texture? I'm familiar with xEdit, but I'm not exactly any kind of expert on it. Looking at some of the other mod that does something similar to what I want (Unique Player and Followers), there seems to be a way to link NPCs to different bodies and skins. With UPF, they linked to a different Armor Addon (Armo), which seems to be the naked body mesh, and new TXST, which seem to be new face and body textures. However, they're changing values for one specific, unique NPC, whereas I want to change it for a whole category of procedural generated people, which I don't know if it's possible. The other thing is, I've looked through the entries in the NPC (Actor) section of xEdit, but it shows every single Gunner entry as using the dirty bodies, even though I know for a fact there are clean Gunners; not only that, but every Gunner entry in the Actor section is listed as being male, and obviously there are female Gunners.

 

The goal, ideally, would be to have the dirty raider body be thin and grimy, and the third potential Gunner body to be more muscular than either the base NPC or Raider body. Because right now, the Gunners use both the base NPC and the thin Raider mesh/textures, and all of their outfits can only be built for one body or the other. With a third body, I could build all of the Gunner outfits to fit all of the Gunners.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Snazzishoez]

I hear you.  I'd love to see this kind of variety as well.  The only thing I know of is what you've listed.  Unique player and followers, plus raiders generally having the dirty texture.  I think you're right though, it would be nice to see the raiders thinner because of their abusive lifestyle and the gunners more fit as they seem like military gone bad after the world went down.  There's several textures out there, especially for CBBE, but sadly nothing really for the specific direction you're looking for.

 

I guess from a roleplay perspective, you can imagine that gunners would recruit ex-raiders and therefore you see what you get in game.  I've seen body types mods fallout new vegas for body by race.  Not sure how it works, but I guess it could be possible.  Could be quite a bit of work though.

[kraoro]

30 minutes ago, Snazzishoez said:

I hear you.  I'd love to see this kind of variety as well.  The only thing I know of is what you've listed.  Unique player and followers, plus raiders generally having the dirty texture.  I think you're right though, it would be nice to see the raiders thinner because of their abusive lifestyle and the gunners more fit as they seem like military gone bad after the world went down.  There's several textures out there, especially for CBBE, but sadly nothing really for the specific direction you're looking for.

 

I guess from a roleplay perspective, you can imagine that gunners would recruit ex-raiders and therefore you see what you get in game.  I've seen body types mods fallout new vegas for body by race.  Not sure how it works, but I guess it could be possible.  Could be quite a bit of work though.

I just feel like there has to be a way to accomplish what I'm trying to do, but I don't know enough about modding or game files to do it. Looking at the changes that Unique Followers made, they somehow added a new FormID for each follower's body and texture, then changed each follower NPC to use that new FormID instead of the old one; the result obviously being that each follower now uses a new body and texture that's different from every other NPC. It could be a simple matter of adding a new FormID for the Gunner body and texture I would want to use (which I actually don't know how to do anyway), but what I don't understand is how or why Gunners use two different body types.

 

I guess to be able to take the first step, if someone knows how I can create a new entry in xEdit with a unique FormID, that would be a start, and then I could try and see if I could eventually find out if I can accomplish what I want to do.

[AWP3RATOR]

You're correct in that this solution would employ a similar method as Unique Players and Followers Redux.  Of the Gunner records that I reviewed (all encGunnerXXXXXX) records seem to be using ARMO:SkinNakedDirty, which points to ARMA:NakedHandsDirty and ARMA:NakedTorsoDirty.

 

You could simply point the encGunnerXXXXXX records at ARMO:SkinHaked, which would give them clean textures.  Alternatively, you could set up an alternative ARMO and ARMA set calling SkinNakedGunner (or any name you choose), and give those unique textures only for gunners.  Once you set up the new records, it's just a matter of overriding the NPC's WNAM - Skin reference to point to your new ARMO (i.e. SkinNakedGunner).

 

Gunners and Raiders are procedurally generated in game and have a random chance of being male or female.  Similar to the Player record - it is male, but can be female at runtime.

 

 

Actor texture sets reference as follows:

 

1. NPC Main Record: WNAM - Skin (ARMO ref, If this is Null, the default for the Race is used - Ex. SkinNakedDirty)
2. ARMO SkinNakedDirty - links to ARMA: NakedHandsDirty, ARMO:NakedTorsoDirty
3. ARMA Records - links to Texture Sets (TXST:SkinBodyMaleDirty_1, TXST:SkinBodyFemaleDirty_1 AND TXST:SkinHandMaleDirty_1, TXST:SkinHandFemale_1)
4. TXST Records - links to actual *.dds paths/files on the local machine

 

Using this as a guide, to create a new texture set-up for Gunners specifically, you would need to recreate the above references:

1. ARMO: SkinNakedGunner
2. ARMA: NakedHandsGunner, NakedTorsoGunner
3. TXST: SkinBodyMaleGunner, SkinBodyFemaleGunner, SkinHandMaleGunner, SkinHandFemaleGunner

Then point whichever desired NPC records at SkinNakedGunner created for this purpose.

 

[kraoro]

EDIT: It looks like I may have cracked it, thanks a lot, AWP. I went to an area with a lot of dead gunners, and half of them were using the new body mesh and texture I had specified. However, it was in the HalluciGen building, and a lot of those gunners were already dead, which means the game doesn't load them as actors, it loads them as containers. I didn't have to edit every Gunner instance in FO4Edit, I just had to make the adjustments to encGunnerFace, since every gunner uses that as a dependency.

 

Something I didn't think of, though, is that now that Gunners have their own separate body texture from raiders and friendly NPCs, I need to find a way to get their clothing variants to use the same CBBE values. Looking through xEdit some more, there's only one entry for each of the gunner clothes (harness, flannel and jeans, etc), and the game adds a material swap to switch to a different texture. I'm thinking this is going to be the limit of the mod I'm working on, but I don't suppose there's a way to have the Gunner Harness and the Raider Harness use different meshes? There's only one instance of each in xEdit.

[AWP3RATOR]

This link https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5978333-fo4-modding-tutorial-list/  has more and better tutorials/info that I could give you via Q&A on using FO4Edit.  Just search the page for the xEdit section.

 

In terms of your reference questions - you're dealing with base NPC templates.  You will need to update them all individually.  While there are many records with "Gunner" in the name, the edit is only for a single record and takes just a few seconds per.  Should be no more then 10 min, and would ideally be the last thing you did.

 

When testing this in game, pick one of the Gunner entries (ex EncGunner00, who's FromID is 0020F489), set up all your reference links, and change that one NPC.  Then go in to game and spawn that npc via console.

 

From the main menu, go to the test cell:  coc qasmoke

Call the gunner to your location (first disable combat AI or you will be attacked):

• tcai    (disables combat AI until same command is entered to re-enable it)
• player.placeatme 0020F489 1     (places 1 FormID EncGunner00 at your location)
• Look at the NPC, click on them in console (you should see a FormID pop-up in middle of screen)
• unequipall  (strips them such that you can see their skin texture)
• Target NPC again in console (click on them again if the FormID is not still showing centered on screen)
• sexchange  (this will swap genders so you can test the male/female textures)

 

When testing these things, i find it's often easier to use a ridiculous test texture so you can absolutely be certain that it's working properly.  For instance, tint a texture blue so it's smurf colored.

 

When one EncGunner00 is working properly and you spawed a few other NPCs and they remain unaffected, then it's time to add that WNAM - Skin reference to as many NPCs as you would like

 

To specifically add a NEW record which doesn't exist in FO4Edit, right-click on the ESP name in the left menu and in the Add hover menu, select the appropriate category to add.  Then collapse and expand the ESP tree (this will show the now hidden added category).  To add a new record to this category, repeat the same process:  Right click on the new category name, and select Add (there should generally be only 1 item in this list).  Give it a new FormID and press OK.

 

If your case however, it may be easier to "copy as new record into" from the main fallout4.esp, and change the values.  Adding new records is OK, but there are a number of settings that will need to be added that will be Null on new record creation.  It's easier to copy an existing record (in this case) and modify it for your needs.  Do not select "copy as override" as this will create an override and not an instanced copy of the record.

 

For the Gunner actor records, there are many.  A good place to start is the Leveled lists.  They start with LCharGunner_______something.  This lists the npc records that are in that list, and are used for all sorts of purposes, but are a convenient starting list of the entries.  Alternatively, you could just update any you find under the NPC category, this will harm nothing.  However, Bethesda often includes records that are deprecated in the final build of the game.  Meaning the record exists, but it's not used anywhere in the game itself.  This is very difficult to know exactly which NPC records are or are not in this case.

 

If it was me, I'd take the 10min and update them all

 

*EDIT*  For the Gunner NPC records, use the "copy as override" option (it's good practice to NEVER update fallout4.esm or the DLCs).  The the skin ARMO, ARMA, and TXST references, use "copy as new record".  This will ensure that you are making altered records of the Gunners in a new plugin, but new references for your ARMO, ARMA, and TXST sets.

 

 

 

[kraoro]

On 5/30/2018 at 12:58 PM, AWP3RATOR said:

 

I really appreciate you taking the time out to help and teach. Thanks to your help and basically reverse engineering Unique Player and Followers, I managed to do it. Gunners and Raiders now use different meshes and textures, and they also use a different mesh for their outfits. Now that I have a tiny bit better of an idea how xEdit and FO4's game files work, both tasks seem really easy in retrospect, but I couldn't have done it without a push in the right direction. Thanks a lot.

[AWP3RATOR]

Amy time!  Now release that as a mod for the community  

[kraoro]

Actually, seems I spoke too soon. The body replacing definitely works. Haven't actually encountered a female gunner in the wild yet, but after summoning several via the console with a couple of different baseIDs, I'm confident that that one works and is done.

 

Ran into a strange issue while trying to replace clothing meshes though. What I did is add four ARMA entries, one for each underarmor that Gunners wear, since all four of those outfits share a mesh with a different outfit (Gunner Harness = Harness, Green Shirt and Jeans = Athletic Outfit, etc), so I added four ARMA entries and changed the value for the female mesh location to an arbitrary folder I made that had their meshes in it. I did not change the value for the men at all, since they all have the default body mesh, and were going to use the default clothing mesh. When I ran into the male gunners in the game, of them had an invisible torso; you could only see his hands and head. Obviously a mixup with a mesh somewhere, BUT, I didn't change anything for the men. When I loaded up my mod in xEdit and hid all non-conflict rows, the entries for the men show up and are yellow, despite the column being blank in my mod. To make matters weirder, the women show up with their gunner outfits in the new gunner-specific mesh with no problems, it's just the men. But that makes no sense, because their outfits are still default, I didn't change anything for them.

 

EDIT: OK, I'm going to (probably prematurely) say that I got it figured out. For some reason, xEdit was treating my lack of editing the male values as a "null" value. The space was blank, I hadn't added anything to the World Model line for Male, but I guess the game thought I was intentionally leaving it blank, because xEdit was showing it as a Yellow conflict, even though I hadn't edited anything. So all I had to do was copy the info from the master to my esp, and made the conflicts go away.

[AWP3RATOR]

@karoro  You got it, when you created new ARMA entries and left the male parts blank, then pointed the ARMO records as overrides to your new ARMAs - the game interpreted this Null as no outfit.  

 

When starting out, it's usually a recommended step to copy an existing record as a new entry - then make your edits.  Creating new records is probably the most ideal to ensure that no previous entries in the original cause unintended side effects - but as you saw, there are pitfalls to watch out for in this as well.

 

Glad you sorted it out!

 

It did exactly what you told it to do.... which is a common joke around my development team   And then there is this one too (for laughs)

 

 

 

 

 

[AWP3RATOR]

Also, many of the generic faction characters in game use Leveled Lists and outfit sets to dynamically spawn variations.  This is true of Gunners, BoS, Minutemen, Raiders, etc.

 

The game engine will have a call for say 10 Gunners of certain types.  Those npc types come from leveled lists and select npcs in the list randomly.  Those NPCs have specific outfits that they were.  It's randomized so that you don't get 10 identical clones when calling the 10 Gunners via script.

 

When you spawned the test npcs, you were calling the base NPC and not the leveled list - so you got clones.

 

Your method of changing the outfit actually changed parts of the base outfit themselves, which in your case solved the issue - but may also cause that Harness object to be different whenever it spawns in game for other purposes.  Not necessarily a problem, just something to be aware of.

[kraoro]

I actually managed to expand my mod a bit further. There's a mod that adds about ten to twenty Raiders and Gunners as new encGunnerFace/encRaiderFace NPCs, so instead of having one body for body for Raiders and one for Gunners, I now have one mesh for each, and five different body textures for each faction, for the sake of variety.

 

Originally, I tried downloading Unique NPCs, but because that mod adds more than 300 encXXXXXXX NPCs, it was absolutely destroying performance. Loading times at least tripled or quadrupled, and I experienced more than a minute of the game hanging whenever I either transitioned from one exterior cell to another, or from exterior to interior/vice versa; more than once I assumed the game had crashed, because the performance and hang was so bad. So I went with a different, more sensible mod. It was nice to have named settlers, and to have practically a guarantee that I'd never see the same raider or gunner twice in the same camp, it was definitely not worth the crippled performance.

[Durante]

There is a body mod on Nexus that gives each faction (BoS, Institute, Raiders, CoA,Forged)   one to three different body meshes with different textures that you can mesh build with bodyslide.

[Invictusblade]

what I use is lots more settlers and enemies https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17343

basically what it does is introduce around 150 male and 200 female faces to each faction (except institute)

and then i change the skins of 20 or so npc's to a tattoo skin and repeat for the next 20 and so on.

 

and to really change it up, i also started using bodygen on all of the npc's

however that has led to problems with certain CROSS clothes and dead invisible npc's

 

[Gameplayer]

43 minutes ago, Invictaxe said:

what I use is lots more settlers and enemies https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17343

basically what it does is introduce around 150 male and 200 female faces to each faction (except institute)

and then i change the skins of 20 or so npc's to a tattoo skin and repeat for the next 20 and so on.

 

and to really change it up, i also started using bodygen on all of the npc's

however that has led to problems with certain CROSS clothes and dead invisible npc's

 

Having too many templates for the Raiders, Gunners, Settlers and so on will lead to crippling performance often described as Stutter but also noted to induce longer load times during cell transitions as already said above in the posts.

 

It'd be nice to have just say about 5 more types added per group rather than some of these huge overhauls.

[C5Kev]

I guess my comment is slightly off-topic, but I've never understood why folks in post-apocalyptic movies and games are always dirty.  I'm doing a run-through using the "Project Valkyrie" mod, went into a club and there were neekid, dirty dancers.  ???  Who the Hell wants to see neekid, dirty (and probably smelly) dancers?  Sorry, not sexy. And there's showers downstairs???   LOL!    Take "The Matrix" movies along with Fallout 4 for examples.  People can create huge hovercraft, "send" people via phone lines, create complex, exotic guns, etc., but can't figure out how to make a washing machine or a sewing machine.   The reasoning just escapes me... 

[AWP3RATOR]

On 8/19/2018 at 1:55 AM, c5kev said:

I guess my comment is slightly off-topic, but I've never understood why folks in post-apocalyptic movies and games are always dirty.  I'm doing a run-through using the "Project Valkyrie" mod, went into a club and there were neekid, dirty dancers.  ???  Who the Hell wants to see neekid, dirty (and probably smelly) dancers?  Sorry, not sexy. And there's showers downstairs???   LOL!    Take "The Matrix" movies along with Fallout 4 for examples.  People can create huge hovercraft, "send" people via phone lines, create complex, exotic guns, etc., but can't figure out how to make a washing machine or a sewing machine.   The reasoning just escapes me... 

That's the question I've always had - more recently about Fallout 4 as well...  I get that the bombs fell 200 years+ in the past, that's great and well for story purposes.  However, for the most part the game looks like it just happened a month prior.  In the 200+ years since the bombs have fallen, literally no one has spread knowledge of masonry, plumbing, electricity, etc.?  Why do ALL of the buildings, save the Institute, look like no one has any knowledge whatsoever about these things?  

 

Further and more to your points.... did personal hygiene become something that is not important?  All of a sudden, the people have no modesty and don't care about their personal appearances?  No on was able to make new clothing that is not in tatters, stained, etc.?

 

I get what you're saying on many levels, but at the same time - most of these games/movies are going for that grungy post-apocalyptic "mad max" style.  Willful suspension of disbelief on the part of the player is a requirement to enter these worlds.

 

P.S. - the dirty strippers at the Raider Bar in Nantick Banks crack me up....  As a Raider, i would like "dirty" women, but not literal dirt - if you get the meaning.

[C5Kev]

8 hours ago, AWP3RATOR said:

That's the question I've always had - more recently about Fallout 4 as well...  I get that the bombs fell 200 years+ in the past, that's great and well for story purposes.  However, for the most part the game looks like it just happened a month prior.  In the 200+ years since the bombs have fallen, literally no one has spread knowledge of masonry, plumbing, electricity, etc.?  Why do ALL of the buildings, save the Institute, look like no one has any knowledge whatsoever about these things?  

 

Further and more to your points.... did personal hygiene become something that is not important?  All of a sudden, the people have no modesty and don't care about their personal appearances?  No on was able to make new clothing that is not in tatters, stained, etc.?

 

I get what you're saying on many levels, but at the same time - most of these games/movies are going for that grungy post-apocalyptic "mad max" style.  Willful suspension of disbelief on the part of the player is a requirement to enter these worlds.

 

P.S. - the dirty strippers at the Raider Bar in Nantick Banks crack me up....  As a Raider, i would like "dirty" women, but not literal dirt - if you get the meaning.

 

I hear ya, FO4 really makes no sense (on many levels), but hey, it's a game, so...    Even in The Road Warrior, I don't remember the refinery settlers being all that dirty. Hell, even with all the weird (Vermin) hair cuts, vehicles and clothes, Lord Humungus, Wez as well as the Feral Kid were at least clean LOL!

 

Anyway, I apologize to the OP for high-jacking the thread.

 

 

[AWP3RATOR]

I always tend to notice the drinking glass in apocalyptic movies/games.... everyone is dirty sure - but generally the drinking glasses are pristine and clean as crystal.  ? 

[Andy14]

That is normal.

Because there are no functioning mirrors everyone thinks, just the other looks shitty. ?