Custom head into skyrim howto do it?

[agiz19]

hi.

 

I have modeled a head and saved it into an .obj and .nif , i can open nif in nifskope easily but i know i have to do something in order the head could be imported and used in the game ( preferably as a head/face of player character ), so how to do this is my question. I have searched and found nothing in terms of a tutorial how to make this work with the game.

 

i know people making custom character mods do this and i would love to do it to, though lack of info i cant , steps of making this are unknown to me so if anyone care to explain a step by step guide or point me into right direction would be gladly appreciated.

 

thanks

 

[jennievm]

20 minutes ago, agiz19 said:

hi.

 

I have modeled a head and saved it into an .obj and .nif , i can open nif in nifskope easily but i know i have to do something in order the head could be imported and used in the game ( preferably as a head/face of player character ), so how to do this is my question. I have searched and found nothing in terms of a tutorial how to make this work with the game.

 

i know people making custom character mods do this and i would love to do it to, though lack of info i cant , steps of making this are unknown to me so if anyone care to explain a step by step guide or point me into right direction would be gladly appreciated.

 

thanks

 

a few questions. Do you want to use it for your character ? if that is the case then its as easy as importing the nif with racemenu. Just note this only works with oldrim skyrim as se racemenu don't have head import functionality yet. If you have both oldrim and SE then you can import it with oldrim save the preset and then import the whole character with racemenu in SE

[agiz19]

12 minutes ago, jennievm said:

a few questions. Do you want to use it for your character ? if that is the case then its as easy as importing the nif with racemenu. Just note this only works with oldrim skyrim as se racemenu don't have head import functionality yet. If you have both oldrim and SE then you can import it with oldrim save the preset and then import the whole character with racemenu in SE

hi thanks for the reply, i want to use it on my character - though the nif i made racemenu cant/wont import saying there is an error with the head, i modeled a custom head form scratch and now it must be modified i think for skyrim to be able to import it, this is where im stuck...

[agiz19]

21 minutes ago, agiz19 said:

hi thanks for the reply, i want to use it on my character - though the nif i made racemenu cant/wont import saying there is an error with the head, i modeled a custom head form scratch and now it must be modified i think for skyrim to be able to import it, this is where im stuck...

the error i get when importing is
"failed to import data"

 

also the mesh is just a nif exported from 3d program, no adittional modifications were made in nifskope (where they should be done propably in order for head to have data skyrim is able to load)

[rafael666]

I don't have any experience with nif's or importing to Skyrim, but I do have some experience making 3d game characters.  The first thing that comes to mind is your poly count.  I don't know what program the head you wish to use was created with.  Applications such as Make Human and Face Maker have a high default polygon count (without looking I'm going to guess in excess of 15k).  The poly count may be too high to import.  Just guessing here, but I wouldn't go over 8k for a head (and  that is high IMO).  1.5k to 2.5k polys would be my target. 

 

Another area you may run into problems with is the "skin" or UV mesh matching up with the model and the eyes, teeth, and tongue.  Any issues with the UV/diffuse mapping will probably be mirrored in the normal mapping, neither of these should create the "failed to import data" error - Just thinking down the road. 

 

The eyes,teeth, and tongue could affect things depending on how they are exported and rigged.  Some programs create the eyelashes and brows as separate objects as well, I'm not sure if that is good or bad for Skyrim.  I'm guessing bad because of the way these can be changed in Racemenu.

 

The final consideration I would note is that exporters are often 3rd party written and my experience is that they don't always work 100% with all applications.  

 

I couldn't offer any more advice without specifics such as the program used to create the head mesh, the exporter and/or converters used, poly count, what textures are used would be helpful but not essential (as textures are not your problem yet).  Essentially your creation and export pipeline.  

[Andy14]

For that you do not need only the nif  - the nif is just the beginning.

If your mesh has a different vertex count / vertex topology than vanilla mesh, you also need the head-tris (container of meshes as obj):
- for the race
- for types of lips, eyes, mouth, etc.
- for facial expression

 

And you should create a new playable race for it, otherwise the tris will not work with the meshes of the NPCs.

 

If you do not want to create tri-files, you'll need to create a new playable race in CK (or TES5Edit) that does not use Tris.

[jennievm]

2 hours ago, Andy14 said:

For that you do not need only the nif  - the nif is just the beginning.

If your mesh has a different vertex count / vertex topology than vanilla mesh, you also need the head-tris (container of meshes as obj):
- for the race
- for types of lips, eyes, mouth, etc.
- for facial expression

 

And you should create a new playable race for it, otherwise the tris will not work with the meshes of the NPCs.

 

If you do not want to create tri-files, you'll need to create a new playable race in CK (or TES5Edit) that does not use Tris.

he wants it for his character. basic face nif should import just fine tho with racemenu been doing it for ages. No tri files etc. The playable race thing is not needed. It should be a simple import. Something is wrong with the format of that nif file. I'm not familiar with editing nifs but maby it just need some sort of conversion. Maby its a different type of nif. 

[Psalam]

Spoiler

19 hours ago, agiz19 said:

hi.

 

I have modeled a head and saved it into an .obj and .nif , i can open nif in nifskope easily but i know i have to do something in order the head could be imported and used in the game ( preferably as a head/face of player character ), so how to do this is my question. I have searched and found nothing in terms of a tutorial how to make this work with the game.

 

i know people making custom character mods do this and i would love to do it to, though lack of info i cant , steps of making this are unknown to me so if anyone care to explain a step by step guide or point me into right direction would be gladly appreciated.

 

thanks

 

 

 

This has more than just the head in it but it also has a step-by-step guide on doing the head:

 

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/3045-tutorial-to-create-a-follower/