Issue while trying to replace a followers hair

[wishbone346]

So I'm using the follower mod Sofia and I decided to pick up the customizer for her here (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/61348?tab=description). The author of that mod also offers a tutorial on how to replace her hair with any hair you want from another mod. I attempted to do this following the steps to the letter but upon entering a new game and testing it I was greeted with an eldritch horror. Sofia's head was gone, her teeth were floating in place but most terrifying of all was the "shadow face" that seemed to be floating a few feet out in front of her. I then attempted to do the tutorial over again but this time I refrained from doing the step of importing the head and eye meshes to see if perhaps that had caused my issue. This time she did have a head but her forehead was red and her eyes were placed a tiny bit too high. I tried asking for aid on that mod's page but received no answer so I thought I'd ask here if anyone knows what I could possibly be doing wrong, and if anyone could point me in the direction of a better tutorial perhaps?

[Kishuna]

Okay, I skimmed through the tutorial really quick, and it's simply not what I normally do. Not saying it's necessarily wrong, but it's the not procedure I follow. SO! Anytime you use a face created not with CK, you need to do some actual .nif editing. This isn't as hard as it sounds if you already have a .nif file of what the face should look like. I'm unsure of the process outlined in the tutorial you have, so I'll tell you what I do.

 

Import your follower hair and hairline, per usual. Creation Kit does a weird thing with the head/face mesh and tintmask, so save everything. Reopen your modified file in CK again, open up Sofia, change whatever and then change it back. Then hit Ctrl + F4 to export facegen files. This is probably the part that messed up. So the .nif file and .dds files exported will not look the same as the regular Sofia, as it used the CK engine to create it, not the actual in-game character create, complete with mods, hence why your Sofia ended up looking like something from Darkest Dungeon. The .dds file you want to straight up replace with whatever the original mod has (the original mod should have it included, in fact I know it does). Sofia's face, the .nif file, is also included, but don't copy/overwrite that. You'll want to use an outside tool like Nifskope, match by vertice, and save. That will give you a "racemenu" face, instead of a distorted vanilla face.

 

Not sure if all that was necessarily easy to follow. Basically it's the same process as the one listed here: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Using_a_face_made_with_RaceMenu_on_an_NPC_for_Skyrim
You have to do that any time you change anything via creation kit.

 

TL;DR - The face you have in game is a distorted vanilla face without a Chargen extension. You need to make a .nif file with the Chargen extension features.

[wishbone346]

11 hours ago, Kishuna said:

Okay, I skimmed through the tutorial really quick, and it's simply not what I normally do. Not saying it's necessarily wrong, but it's the not procedure I follow. SO! Anytime you use a face created not with CK, you need to do some actual .nif editing. This isn't as hard as it sounds if you already have a .nif file of what the face should look like. I'm unsure of the process outlined in the tutorial you have, so I'll tell you what I do.

 

Import your follower hair and hairline, per usual. Creation Kit does a weird thing with the head/face mesh and tintmask, so save everything. Reopen your modified file in CK again, open up Sofia, change whatever and then change it back. Then hit Ctrl + F4 to export facegen files. This is probably the part that messed up. So the .nif file and .dds files exported will not look the same as the regular Sofia, as it used the CK engine to create it, not the actual in-game character create, complete with mods, hence why your Sofia ended up looking like something from Darkest Dungeon. The .dds file you want to straight up replace with whatever the original mod has (the original mod should have it included, in fact I know it does). Sofia's face, the .nif file, is also included, but don't copy/overwrite that. You'll want to use an outside tool like Nifskope, match by vertice, and save. That will give you a "racemenu" face, instead of a distorted vanilla face.

 

Not sure if all that was necessarily easy to follow. Basically it's the same process as the one listed here: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Using_a_face_made_with_RaceMenu_on_an_NPC_for_Skyrim
You have to do that any time you change anything via creation kit.

 

TL;DR - The face you have in game is a distorted vanilla face without a Chargen extension. You need to make a .nif file with the Chargen extension features.

No matter what I do I can't seem to get this to work. Still ending up with the red forehead and eyes being offset. I added the lines mentioned in your link to my nif.xml too so I'm not sure what could be the problem. I'm guessing it must have something to do with running it through the creation kit? I've attached a screenshot of the issue in case that might be useful.

 

 

ScreenShot2.bmp

[wishbone346]

Well, I figured out one of the issues. Seems the current version of Nifskope was the problem when it came to the misaligned eyes. I switched to an older version and that problem is now gone. However, I'm still seeing the red forehead. I'm assuming that's gotta be a texture issue.

[Grey Cloud]

4 hours ago, wishbone346 said:

Well, I figured out one of the issues. Seems the current version of Nifskope was the problem when it came to the misaligned eyes. I switched to an older version and that problem is now gone. However, I'm still seeing the red forehead. I'm assuming that's gotta be a texture issue.

It is something to do with the tint masks. There are tutorials on the net  - I came across a couple last night while looking for something else. Don't quote me here but I think it was a simple matter of temporarily removing the tintmask folder, doing the head/hair and then replacing the tintmask folder.

[wishbone346]

10 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

It is something to do with the tint masks. There are tutorials on the net  - I came across a couple last night while looking for something else. Don't quote me here but I think it was a simple matter of temporarily removing the tintmask folder, doing the head/hair and then replacing the tintmask folder.

Yeah, you were right. Seems the tint masks got messed up going through the creation kit somehow. Came out looking all wonky. I downloaded the original mod manually and replaced them and now everything's working. Thanks for the help, friend.

[Grey Cloud]

6 minutes ago, wishbone346 said:

Yeah, you were right. Seems the tint masks got messed up going through the creation kit somehow. Came out looking all wonky. I downloaded the original mod manually and replaced them and now everything's working. Thanks for the help, friend.

Glad you fettled it. I think it is something to do with the in-game tintmask resolution being higher than the CK can handle.