SK file for Eyes

[hogsmaws]

i'm not sure if there is something wrong with my RACEMENU mod. whenever I export heads the eye section doesn't have an "eyebrown_sk.dds" line entry. 

 

 

 

looking at other head nifs I see that they do have the sk file entry

 

 

 

 

am I missing something?

[RW311]

No it's normal as far as I can tell I find this line missing from any head that was exported not just by me but other mods.

Your file path is odd to me because there is no character\females  texture folder in base game and eyebrown.sk is in character\eyes, you must be exporting eyes from a mod?

[hogsmaws]

2 minutes ago, RW311 said:

No it's normal as far as I can tell I find this line missing from any head that was exported not just by me but other mods.

Your file path is odd to me because there is no character\females  texture folder in base game and eyebrown.sk is in character\eyes, you must be exporting eyes from a mod?

oh that. yea I re-path these for a replacer mod that I maintain. the freshly created head nifs look like this:

 

 

all of the other head NIFs from mods have the eye SK line entry (e.g. Bijin, Ordinary Women). so are these modders manually entering these lines?

[RW311]

I looked through my exported head files from racemenu and the sk texture path is not there, but looking at those same heads once I had combined them with ck head using nifmerge it was added back, although nifmerge adds it's own problems anwyay. 

[hogsmaws]

59 minutes ago, RW311 said:

I looked through my exported head files from racemenu and the sk texture path is not there, but looking at those same heads once I had combined them with ck head using nifmerge it was added back, although nifmerge adds it's own problems anwyay. 

hmmm. not sure what to make of it. i'm confused. the whole reason i looked into this is because some of my replacers have missing eyelids from a distance but gradually fill in when you get closer to them. sk texture files deal with sub-surface textures. not sure if that equates to my eyelid issues.

 

i think a fact is that every other mod out there whether it be a follower or replacer mod will most likely have this line entry (i'd wager) so the question is how is it in their NIFs and not ours?

[RW311]

can you upload a nif with this problem for me to look at?

[hogsmaws]

Just now, RW311 said:

can you upload a nif with this problem for me to look at?

 

A.nif

[RW311]

shader flags look wrong. Missing eye environment mapping but includes decal which I dont think is even used in skyrim?

Also flag for env mapping in eyes might actually be causing the shader to fade like that..

[hogsmaws]

11 minutes ago, RW311 said:

shader flags look wrong. Missing eye environment mapping but includes decal which I dont think is even used in skyrim?

Also flag for env mapping in eyes might actually be causing the shader to fade like that..

so is that a RACEMENU issue or an eye-mod issue? the only eye mods i am using is:

1. TheEyesOfBeauty.esp=1
2. LindsHumanEyes.esp=1

 

btw, just curious what you are looking at to get this info. you're obviously more advanced.

[RW311]

The shader flag would most likely have been copied directly from the eye nif used, in this case I think it was lindshumaneyes based on the texture path of that eye.

 

Open the nif with nifskope, click on eyes, go to BSlightingShaderproperty look in bottom window you should see shader flag1 and 2, in shader flag1 compare that with any other working facgen.nif. 

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1188259-bslightingshaderproperty-basics/

 

 

When using nifskop click on help/interactivehelp this opens a very useful side window that will have details on whatever you select.

[hogsmaws]

here is a screen capture from mine and bijin

 

 

 

 

first glance is that I don't have the SLSF2_Double_Sided in Flag2

[RW311]

I would speculate that the eye problem is with racemenu export, which you could try to figure out by comparing the eye.nif from the mod to what ended up being exported in the facegen.nif. 

However,  it's also possible the problem is with the shader settings the mod author used and it's just not noticed since most people will never see the eyes at any distance as they are only on the player character until you went and added them to an npc which revealed the limitations of using those shader settings..?

 

[RW311]

2 minutes ago, hogsmaws said:

here is a screen capture from mine and bijin

 

 

 

 

first glance is that I don't have the SLSF2_Double_Sided in Flag2

 

I'm pretty sure the problem is with using the flag environment_mapping instead of eye_environment_mapping in the nif you gave me. The reason is because when you assign evnmapping flag you need to define the scale, otherwise default is unknown if there is any so that shader basically fades out as soon as the nif is x? distance from the camera. There is no scale set in that nif you gave me but the eyecubemap scale is defined so I don't know if the mod creator didn't know to set the scale or didn't know this happened or if like I said in previous post never realized it would be a problem because you can never move the camera far enough from the eyes if they are attached to the player character to see the problem.

[hogsmaws]

1 hour ago, RW311 said:

 

I'm pretty sure the problem is with using the flag environment_mapping instead of eye_environment_mapping in the nif you gave me. The reason is because when you assign evnmapping flag you need to define the scale, otherwise default is unknown if there is any so that shader basically fades out as soon as the nif is x? distance from the camera. There is no scale set in that nif you gave me but the eyecubemap scale is defined so I don't know if the mod creator didn't know to set the scale or didn't know this happened or if like I said in previous post never realized it would be a problem because you can never move the camera far enough from the eyes if they are attached to the player character to see the problem.

but those eye mods don't install any eye nifs. they're all just textures. even if you unpack the Racemenu BSA it doesn't have any eye nifs. so the only eye nif is the vanilla one in game that is buried in the Skyrim - Meshes.BSA file.

[hogsmaws]

i just extracted the vanilla eyes for the female and male and they have the sk pathing:

 

 

 

eyesfemale.nif

 

eyesmale.nif

 

 

 

 

[RW311]

Ok I checked in linds human eyes mods and the texture settings match line for line from the texture set data to your exported heads eyes. So you have a rogue eye.nif file in your character assets data folder or racemenu is doing something really wrong on export or - is there else you are doing with this nif file after export?

[RW311]

3 minutes ago, hogsmaws said:

i just extracted the vanilla eyes for the female and male and they have the sk pathing:

 

 

 

eyesfemale.nif

 

eyesmale.nif

 

 

 

 

Yes but this is not where the exported eye gets this data, the texture data will come from the head part and the texture sets in the esp so missing sk files are fine as they may not be used for all eye textures.

[hogsmaws]

7 minutes ago, RW311 said:

Ok I checked in linds human eyes mods and the texture settings match line for line from the texture set data to your exported heads eyes. So you have a rogue eye.nif file in your character assets data folder or racemenu is doing something really wrong on export or - is there else you are doing with this nif file after export?

 

i don't have any eye nifs at all. you're having the same issue too though right? i'm not doing anything to the nifs after export. i just open them to re-path for the mod. the only mod i know that has eye nifs is that eye glitch fix mod (which i don't have installed) https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50132?

 

 

 

[hogsmaws]

i think it's safe to say that other modders do not hand-jam the sk pathing to the dds files so the question is, what is different on our PCs vs theirs? i'm starting to doubt that we'll find an answer to this quandary.

 

wait a minute... do other modders make their replacers in CK? that might be it. i do EVERYTHING in xEdit. i don't even touch CK really. i wonder if their head nifs don't have the sk pathing until after they do something to it in CK? i dunno... that's all i can think of.

 

[RW311]

I realize I did not explain this at all initially, but the missing sk files are not missing they weren't in the head part data for the eyes or the texture set so your racemenu is not messing that up it's copying what was there and I have the same results. The nifmerge uses a script and it tends to add them back but they don't need to be there, probably shouldn't just leave them but I can't see any visible difference.

The problem you have is not missing texture path but wrong shader flags in the eyes part of that head but I don't know how you ended up with those getting changed I don't know if racemenu can even do that.

[hogsmaws]

15 minutes ago, RW311 said:

I realize I did not explain this at all initially, but the missing sk files are not missing they weren't in the head part data for the eyes or the texture set so your racemenu is not messing that up it's copying what was there and I have the same results. The nifmerge uses a script and it tends to add them back but they don't need to be there, probably shouldn't just leave them but I can't see any visible difference.

The problem you have is not missing texture path but wrong shader flags in the eyes part of that head but I don't know how you ended up with those getting changed I don't know if racemenu can even do that.

oic. would shader flags do this? using Naz as an example bc he is real dark and the eyes really show the issue.

 

 

• what would mess with shader flags?
• is there anyway to remedy the issue?

 

i'm really perplexed as this setup is a pretty clean, fresh, new install. less than a month so all the mods are latest and stock and it's not like it's old and i had time to monkey it up.

[RW311]

You can change shader flags in nifskope and test if that fixes it, just go the the BSLightingShaderProperties under the eyes and in the box with all the shaders listed for shader flag 1 and 2 you double click in that box and an arrow will popup in the right side of the box clicking this arrow will let you scroll through and check or uncheck any flags. I would just set them all to what is found in vanilla facegen head or use the eye.nif from the bsa for example. 

If you don't have any eye.nif or eyechargen.tri files in data then check your mods in tesedit for any race edits or anything that changed the headparts for the eyes, still don't think this part of the nif can be changed by esp data but if you can't find a nif file anywhere then I don't know.

[hogsmaws]

16 minutes ago, RW311 said:

You can change shader flags in nifskope and test if that fixes it, just go the the BSLightingShaderProperties under the eyes and in the box with all the shaders listed for shader flag 1 and 2 you double click in that box and an arrow will popup in the right side of the box clicking this arrow will let you scroll through and check or uncheck any flags. I would just set them all to what is found in vanilla facegen head or use the eye.nif from the bsa for example. 

If you don't have any eye.nif or eyechargen.tri files in data then check your mods in tesedit for any race edits or anything that changed the headparts for the eyes, still don't think this part of the nif can be changed by esp data but if you can't find a nif file anywhere then I don't know.

thanx i appresh all the assistance.