Facegen Export forehead-stripe (TGA and DDS tintmask files)

[shencereys]

Hey!

 

I recently did a facegen export to fix discolored heads on my Prettier Bandits install.  

 

But the DDS and TGA files I get in return are messed up. (Example: 0001A01B.dds) Mostly one color with a discoloration at the top.  This discoloration appears on the forehead of the tintmask's associated NPC.

 

SO

 

Is there a quick way to fix this across 350+ DDS or TGA files?  Or a way for the Facegen CTRL+F4 export in CK to make the files properly?  Or do I gotta go through and hand-fill all the red purple and etc gaps in almost a thousand dds files ? 

 

 

[Ash71]

This typically happens when you are using non-vanilla skin texture/tintmasks when you export the facegen, the CK can't handle them for whatever reason. Try temporarily disabling any skin textures or mods that add tintmasks before you export via the CK.

I don't know of any quick fix for the faulty facetints so you will probably have to re-export all of them =/

 

TGA files are not used by the game and I think are for creating meshes in 3dsmax/blender usually. You can safely discard them otherwise. 

[Blaze69]

That bug happens because you are using one or more tintmasks that are not 256x256 pixels in size.

 

The vanilla tintmasks (and by extension the exported FaceGen textures for NPCs) had to be reduced to that size due to console hardware limitations, and for some reason Beth decided to hardcode that texture size into the CK FaceGen exporter, even if the game itself can handle bigger tints (up to 2048x2048 or even 4k) just fine. So if you try to export FaceGen with one or more "HD" tintmask replacers installed (aka anything bigger than 256 aka anything that doesn't look like shit), the CK can't process the tintmasks and you get that bug.

 

Try uninstalling/disabling/temporarily renaming any mod(s) that make changes to the tintmasks folder and see if that fixes it when exporting FaceGen again.

[shencereys]

 

32 minutes ago, Ash71 said:

This typically happens when you are using non-vanilla skin texture/tintmasks when you export the facegen, the CK can't handle them for whatever reason. Try temporarily disabling any skin textures or mods that add tintmasks before you export via the CK.

I don't know of any quick fix for the faulty facetints so you will probably have to re-export all of them =/

 

TGA files are not used by the game and I think are for creating meshes in 3dsmax/blender usually. You can safely discard them otherwise. 

 

Hey, I think actually the TGA files MIGHT be used by the game, because when I removed the edited DDS files the problem persisted (still red stripe)?  One would think if the DDS was completely obliterated it would show a purple face or somesuch right?  Or maybe I'm totally wrong and missed something.

 

17 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

That bug happens because you are using one or more tintmasks that are not 256x256 pixels in size.

 

The vanilla tintmasks (and by extension the exported FaceGen textures for NPCs) had to be reduced to that size due to console hardware limitations, and for some reason Beth decided to hardcode that texture size into the CK FaceGen exporter, even if the game itself can handle bigger tints (up to 2048x2048 or even 4k) just fine. So if you try to export FaceGen with one or more "HD" tintmask replacers installed (aka anything bigger than 256 aka anything that doesn't look like shit), the CK can't process the tintmasks and you get that bug.

 

Try uninstalling/disabling/temporarily renaming any mod(s) that make changes to the tintmasks folder and see if that fixes it when exporting FaceGen again.

 

Hm this gets considerably more complicated i think if it's this same bigger than 256k mod that's causing the discolored head (well really, discolored body) I'm trying to fix!

 

Thanks to both of you for your answers!  Whenever I get around to trying the re-export i'll post my results for the sake of future answer-seekers, although that probably won't be for a few days.

[RW311]

If you're having to export a lot of npc heads then just go to textures>actors>character>character assets>tintmaks and rename tintmaks folder before loading ck, do the exports then name the folder back.   Exporting the new facegen should correct any mismatch between the head and body.

 

[shencereys]

1 hour ago, RW311 said:

If you're having to export a lot of npc heads then just go to textures>actors>character>character assets>tintmaks and rename tintmaks folder before loading ck, do the exports then name the folder back.   Exporting the new facegen should correct any mismatch between the head and body.

 

ooh, or alternately, with a mod manager I could just re-copy the original mod's tintmasks back out of the archive and overwrite the borked ones in my mod?

 

Edit: hmm no the alternate solution didn't work.   Is that because creation kit uses the existing tintmasks when doing the facegen update in some way?

 

Either way, I'll try renaming the all the mods tintmask folders when I do this and see if that helps.

[shencereys]

FIXED!  SUCCESS!

 

So to future searchers for forehead mismatch / purple forehead / red forehead etc etc:

 

• If you're trying to fix this with Mod Organizer, search your Mod Organizer's "mods" folder  (eg:  C:\Mod Organizer\Mods )for "tintmask".   Look at your search results.  

 

• If at least one of your search results mod's filestructure is ...MODNAME\textures\actors\character\character assets\tintmasks
  •  Then it is effecting your CK facegen export output. 
    • Rename each such mod's tintmask folders for now.  This will prevent CK from knowing where to find these tintmasks and screwing up your export. 
    •  NOTE: Don't rename tintmasks folder in the mod you're currently editing, obviously

 

• If a mod from your search's filestructure is NOT ...MODNAME\textures\actors\character\character assets\tintmasks
  • It's not affecting CK facegen outputs, so you can ignore it.

 

• Now open CK and export your facegens from the mod in question (CTRL+F4).
  • Once done, rename all the folders you changed back to "tintmask"

 

• Now copy the files from your MO overwrite folder into the mod's directory and you should be good to go.  No more red/blue/brown/whatever foreheads and no more discolored heads.

 

 

[terrorofmorrowind]

Thanks mate! Seriously, much appreciated!

 

For anyone still confused, rename the FOLDER to something else, NOT the actual files who are in the folder, like i thought at first. I mean it still would work but it's editing like about 10 more things then only one.

[RomeoZero]

tga files are used as lod textures for face gen. 

[shencereys]

Nercoing this topic to say that I had forgotten all about this and it saved me again from a "purple/red stripe on head" issue 3 years later that I had forgotten about.

 

no adult mods even involved.

 

RW311's advice to hide the mods that modify tintmasks from CK (in this case by renaming the "tintmask" folders to something you'll remember to change back) totally worked again