Question about skin textures in armor

[Ezarr]

Got a question. Is there a way to make an armor use different skin textures depending on who npc is wearing it?

 

I have a custom follower that has his own skin textures. But when I give it skimpy armor to wear, it uses my body textures instead and that creates seams.

 

Is there a way around this?

[yatol]

your char is nord

you equip iron armor

game equip nord race armor on that armor meshe that have skin tint shader

if you give sbp 33 to iron armor, game load hand texture on iron armor (because the sbp 33 of race armor is hand texture)

 

don't remember seing an astrid race

if astrid is a nord

you equip iron armor on her

game equip npc astrid worn armor on that armor meshe that have skin tint shader

 

[Ezarr]

I'm really sorry bro. Looks like you made a neat explanation, but for me is hard to follow you cause I'm not that knowledgeable about this stuff. I'm a noob. When you say sbp, does that means "skin body partition"? I don't get the skin tint shader part, cause I don't know what that implies.

[Andy14]

If your follower has a own race then you can create an additional Armor Addon Form for that race and use a TextureSet there.
In Armor Form then the normal Armor Addon and the race-specific Addon must be used.

 

But that's not really necessary.

 

The Bodymesh as part of the armor is unnecessary in 95% of all cases.

 

Create the nif of the armor WITHOUT bodymesh and assign meaningful slots to the meshes of the armor (not 32).
If you convert the BSDismemberSkinInstances to NiSkinInstances (3 mouse clicks) then the Nif is even neutral and the slot editing has to be made only in CK in the Armor Addon and Armor.

 

Meaningful slots: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Skyrim_bodyparts_number

(see the Free body slots)

 

[RW311]

You don't edit armors for texture path of npc you edit npc so it always uses correct body textures with armor where skin tint is used.

IF your npc wears outfit but skin tints are from default skin textures then you need to find out how the npcs textures were added, if only by editing the nif texture paths then you will always lose your tint when changing clothing. Your npc needs to have it's own base armor body/hands/feet with texture sets created to assign the skin tint textures from the correct file path. This can be done if npc is custom race or the better way to do it is by adding a worn armor to the npc and creating that worn armor as naked torso armor that adds the complete body parts with textures assigned.

[Ezarr]

7 hours ago, Andy14 said:

Create the nif of the armor WITHOUT bodymesh and assign meaningful slots to the meshes of the armor (not 32).
If you convert the BSDismemberSkinInstances to NiSkinInstances (3 mouse clicks) then the Nif is even neutral and the slot editing has to be made only in CK in the Armor Addon and Armor.

I understand. I should try with this solution.

 

7 hours ago, RW311 said:

IF your npc wears outfit but skin tints are from default skin textures then you need to find out how the npcs textures were added, if only by editing the nif texture paths then you will always lose your tint when changing clothing.

Yep I think this is the problem right here.

 

 

I see there are different ways to go with. But looks to me that giving my npc a custom race is the better option. I should explore more into this, but at least now I know it is possible. Thanks for all of your answers guys, it has helped me a lot.

[RW311]

I don't see any benefit to custom race for npc really it's just more work for the same results. If you don't need custom skeleton and animations for npc then there is nothing else you can't change about them otherwise sine npc is very static.

[Ezarr]

Yeah, you got a solid point there.

[Andy14]

The humanoid races all use the skeleton and the same animations.
The benefit of the races (beyond the Skill bonus) is the ability to automatically use the right skin textures, the right meshes for hands, feet, hair, etc.

That's why you do not need countless magician robes as nif. (as an an example)
All races use the same nif, even independent of the magician class (color variants and enchantments).

 

The color variants of the robes are assigned as textureset in the ArmorAddon directly to the mesh (in Model Data),

the race-specific skin of the body (or feets, hands) as SkinTexture with the TextureSet of the race.

 

The race(s) itself is also set in the Armor Addon.

Armor Addon: https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=ArmorAddon&oldid=50208

 

The Armor itself uses only all Armor Addons in Models and a race (mostly DefaultRace = Playable).

By default, only the first ArmorAddon will be displayed in Models.
Click on "Show All" to see them all.

Armor: https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Armor

 

Back to the topic (above was only for completeness):
Whether it makes sense to create a race for a custom follower, I can not say.
It may be better to assign a standard Skintexture and meshes (vanilla races) to the Custom Follower.

 

And the variant without Bodymesh (which I have described) requires the same body-nif (as from the PC) or at least the same mesh/shape and must be made for both sexes.