guide Fallout IV for Beginners - V3.2.9 (Fusion Girl / Bodytalk)

[vaultbait]

3 hours ago, snuffyluffy said:

Thank you! Any insight on "merging" mods or patches would also be appreciated.

 

Don't. "Merging" mods is more likely to break things than help, especially if you have no experience with making your own mods in order to know what kinds of problems to look out for, and is a technique that hails from the early days of modding before the community had really worked out better solutions.

 

With so many mods' plugins being ESL flagged or trivially flaggable ("Mark as Light" in Vortex's Plugins view), you have to be running a crazy number of mods to get close to the ESP limit these days. I have about 800 mods installed, with over 500 enabled plugins, and everything works fine as long as I make sure not to end up with more than 254 non-light plugins. The archive limit is a lot higher than that, but also recent versions of Buffout 4 include a fix for it, or you can simply extract BSAs that don't have many files in them and switch those mods to loose in order to avoid problems.

[Klabusterbeerenbusch]

Hello,

Nuka Recipe Book 2K Retextures (Nuka World) gone from Nexus

Robot Model Kit 2K Retextures and Collectible Boxes gone from Nexus  (found a upload at Softonic)

Edited January 11 by Klabusterbeerenbusch

[NW_BEEZ]

you know where I can find a 2k body and head textures for Intelligent ghouls?

Edited January 17 by NW_BEEZ

[jg8ts]

Love the list and I'm running a cut down version of it in a new play through.

One question though, is there something in here that drastically increases NPC-NPC aggro range. For example, it seems that whenever I'm anywhere near Diamond City I can see huge firefights going on, most obviously over the river where its more clearly visible. The annoying thing is that NPCs seem to be running off to get involved in fights when you want to talk to them. e.g Danny Sullivan, the guard at the DC gate ran a couple of blocks to get involved in a fight.

 

There is a separate issue with the Glock 19 10mm pistol appearing deformed meaning you can't use any sights but thats been raised as a bug on the mod site. Possibly an interaction with Tactical Reload but there some variations reported.

 

EDIT: It's the Real AI mod that increases mob hostility range. It's an interesting mod but the overall impact is that it tends to lead to many mobs being killed as they fight with each other, creating dead neighborhoods where, for example, all the ferals have been killed by a neighboring raider gang and so on, making the game safer for the PC at later levels. In addition settlers and settlement defences tend to attack anything nearby creating large safe zones around settlements. It still has its moments though e.g. when you run into a raider v gunner v super mutant v deathclaw fight and you hope your sneak is good enough

Edited February 24 by jg8ts

[xxxstupidfastxxx]

Considering running this as the Skyrim guide worked out fantastically, has anyone tried this with CBBE (and associated physics mods)? Seems like LL leans Fusion, is this because the animation framework tends to work better with it? I prefer CBBE in Skyrim and like the customizability/look of it more than fusion but want to pick what works the smoothest with the framework if thats the main reason for the preference.

[Varithina]

12 hours ago, xxxstupidfastxxx said:

Considering running this as the Skyrim guide worked out fantastically, has anyone tried this with CBBE (and associated physics mods)? Seems like LL leans Fusion, is this because the animation framework tends to work better with it? I prefer CBBE in Skyrim and like the customizability/look of it more than fusion but want to pick what works the smoothest with the framework if thats the main reason for the preference.

 

I ran it with cbbe a while back, and had no issues you just have to pay attention to installing the various things, this was quite some time ago, my current install is fg, to be honest personally I can always find a preset that I like well enough regardless of body type, and then just edit it to suit me, so for me the only reason to go one body type over the other is can I get the bodyslide files for the armour and clothing mods I want to install for the body I choose.

[ashkat1454]

I followed your list to the T and for some reason I can't get rid of the brown face bug.

I tried the rusty face mod on nexus
Swapping face textures around

I've been here testing and trying to fix it for over 4 hours, someone please help!

[deff_lv]

7 minutes ago, ashkat1454 said:

I followed your list to the T and for some reason I can't get rid of the brown face bug.

I tried the rusty face mod on nexus
Swapping face textures around

I've been here testing and trying to fix it for over 4 hours, someone please help!

 

Brown face bug is caused by conflicting texture resolutions on the face and body - check your "look" mods. Tattos, makeup, face texture, body texture. If you are using, for example 2k  face textures, makeup and tattoos on face must be 2k as well. If not, this can cause brown face bug

Edited March 28 by deff_lv

[ashkat1454]

34 minutes ago, deff_lv said:

 

Brown face bug is caused by conflicting texture resolutions on the face and body - check your "look" mods. Tattos, makeup, face texture, body texture. If you are using, for example 2k  face textures, makeup and tattoos on face must be 2k as well. If not, this can cause brown face bug

I'm only using what's on the mod list and using the 2k from them, that's why i'm confused

[midnight5665]

UltraLOD Feather gone from nexus

 

[chabp]

allo

i hope everything is for you.

the problem i cant find a sulution ibetween hud framework and fallui over write and i cant find the righ info to fixe it or live it like that.

can you help?

[BluEydItalian]

Hey... this may be a question with many possible answers, but maybe you might have some suggestions. I've installed about half the list so far, which is awesome btw. I've tried running the game and it runs fine, but there is a pretty noticeable stutter when I try to move the character anywhere.

 

My system is a 13900KF, 32g memory, RTX 4070Ti with a 4k monitor. Any ideas as to what may be causing the stutter? It seems like my system should be able to handle the textures. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks again for how much work you put into the list.

[Nexodus]

What's a good replacer for the deleted UltraLOD Feather?

[DarthNyriss]

Does it stutter in any particular place or just all the time?

 

[chabp]

allo may be you can help. Fusion girl sliders morph in look menus panel do not show up. nothing in F4ee/ slider folder like CBBE this one wokring.

FG show in ouffit studio mod no problem but.....so nothing before vault or out out of vault on SLM 14

[vaultbait]

18 minutes ago, chabp said:

allo may be you can help. Fusion girl sliders morph in look menus panel do not show up. nothing in F4ee/ slider folder like CBBE this one wokring.

FG show in ouffit studio mod no problem but.....so nothing before vault or out out of vault on SLM 14

 

The slider data is in the separate ZeX ZBG mod along with sample LooksMenu BodyGen configuration (it's shared by both FG and BT bodies).

[Bigglsby]

On 4/9/2024 at 1:06 AM, Nexodus said:

What's a good replacer for the deleted UltraLOD Feather?

 

Likely your best bet as a generic LOD mod would be:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/61884

 

This is the toolset used to generate your own LOD, and links to a very step-by-step process to do so... if you're so inclined.

 

It also provides a generic pre-generated LOD set that will work pretty well.  It is about half the size of the referenced Feather LOD, so I'm not sure how much different it is.  I think (assume/guess) that Feather got pulled because it was a bundled collection of the Far Object LOD (this link) files and a collection of the referenced LOD assets  from the guide, perhaps without permissions.

 

But the linked pre-gen can be installed along with the main files - and you can get the LOD textures referenced in the generation instructions for better LOD textures/meshes.  It's not quite a one-and-done like Feather, but it's not far off either.

[Bigglsby]

On 4/8/2024 at 5:33 PM, BluEydItalian said:

Hey... this may be a question with many possible answers, but maybe you might have some suggestions. I've installed about half the list so far, which is awesome btw. I've tried running the game and it runs fine, but there is a pretty noticeable stutter when I try to move the character anywhere.

 

My system is a 13900KF, 32g memory, RTX 4070Ti with a 4k monitor. Any ideas as to what may be causing the stutter? It seems like my system should be able to handle the textures. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks again for how much work you put into the list.

 

Depending on where/when you get your stuttering, it could be different things.

 

My best guess (since I fought this for a while before figuring it out myself), is from loose 2k face textures of all things.  Fallout 4 really doesn't much like loose textures, and the variety and frequency of face textures just causes a mess.  So make sure your face texture mod is .ba2 packed.  LMCC, Natural faces, or whichever. 

[Nexodus]

On 4/11/2024 at 4:14 AM, Bigglsby said:

 

Likely your best bet as a generic LOD mod would be:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/61884

 

This is the toolset used to generate your own LOD, and links to a very step-by-step process to do so... if you're so inclined.

 

It also provides a generic pre-generated LOD set that will work pretty well.  It is about half the size of the referenced Feather LOD, so I'm not sure how much different it is.  I think (assume/guess) that Feather got pulled because it was a bundled collection of the Far Object LOD (this link) files and a collection of the referenced LOD assets  from the guide, perhaps without permissions.

 

But the linked pre-gen can be installed along with the main files - and you can get the LOD textures referenced in the generation instructions for better LOD textures/meshes.  It's not quite a one-and-done like Feather, but it's not far off either.

Thank you good sir, I really appreciate it.

[Nexodus]

Got a crash caused by Mutant Menagerie, I went to the mod page to find in the comments to see this posted by mod author, should that be disregarded or void the mod all-together?

[UnknownUnknowns]

I really like using your guides to build a baseline game for both FO4 and Skyrim, so wanna thank you for the work.

 

The Cridowskin installation doesn't seem to match your guide anymore. Is it checking just one, with the option to pick two just for unique player users? Or is there some point to choosing multiple base skins?

[Bigglsby]

3 hours ago, UnknownUnknowns said:

I really like using your guides to build a baseline game for both FO4 and Skyrim, so wanna thank you for the work.

 

The Cridowskin installation doesn't seem to match your guide anymore. Is it checking just one, with the option to pick two just for unique player users? Or is there some point to choosing multiple base skins?

 

It's just the recommended options for skins (of course there are others as well).  Cridowskin is a very good option, but was improved upon (subjectively) by the author with Darling skin.  Darling has fewer install options though.  Just pick your preference between the two - unless you're using Unique player as mentioned.

[xxxstupidfastxxx]

Hmm so doing an install it appears a solid 10% of the mods on this list have been purged from Nexus, including things like the recolor mod and many patches/fixes. Has anyone done a recent install thats working? A bit spooked by so many mods being missing

[Bromm83]

Since Eco is gone, does anyone have a good suggestion for a weapon setup that will work well with the rest? I tried to change to eco redux and some other changes, but still have plenty of weapons that doesn't work. First playthrough in 6 years, so feel kinda lost at what the problem is. 

[misterpipes]

On 4/9/2024 at 1:33 AM, BluEydItalian said:

I've tried running the game and it runs fine, but there is a pretty noticeable stutter when I try to move the character anywhere.

 

My system is a 13900KF, 32g memory, RTX 4070Ti with a 4k monitor. Any ideas as to what may be causing the stutter?

I just came back to FO4 for the first time since upgrading my computer, A set of upgrades that saw my Skyrim perfomance rocket. I dunno what the difference between Skyrim and FO4 is, but those same upgrades saw FO4 performance plummet. We're talking 'stutters' that could last upwards of 10 seconds, and FPS drops to 0, while running loops around the outside of Diamon City. Joy.
Now @Bigglsby already pointed you in the right direction (loose textures, especially Natural Faces) and I'm going to expand upon this with 1: a tool to indentify loose texture culprits, 2: a tool to help fix those culprits, and 3: a way to fix the inevitable problems these fixes will cause (a big welcome back to rusty face in 2024).

 

TL:DR: use procmon to find offending mods, use CAO to pack the offenders up, resolve overwrite conflicts for fun and profit (and improved performance).

 

Wall of text time:

 

1: Ideally you have a second monitor to run this on, so you can watch output in real time. The tool is Process Monitor (from Microsoft). Run it with procmon filtering on Process Name fallout4.exe and Path contains dds, and optionally Path contains ba2. You also might want to turn on the Duration column, just to see how much time each read is taking. Make sure autoscroll is on. Now launch FO4 and run around your laggy locations. Every time you stutter or freeze, look over to procmon, which will tell you the path to the files being read. The real path, with the mod name included, not the uvfs path. Very helpful.
If your results are like mine, the big cuplrits here will be: Natural Faces (unless you have already replaced its loose files version with the ba2 version), then which ever female skin you are using (cridow or darling), then Hairy Men. And if your testing is in/near Diamond City, probably DC Guard Amour.

 

2: Thanks to a comment by Cridow on thier Darling Skin page (which made me go 'Oh, yeah, thats a tool that exists'), we can fix this without having to bugger about with Creation Kit. So download and extract (it isn't a mod install, so don't try to install it via MO2) Cathedral Assets Optimizer from the Skyrim SE nexus (it will work fine with FO4 for the purpose we want it). For this example we're doing DC Guard Armour, you'll understand why later.
Run Cathedral_Assets_Optimizer.exe. Set the profile to FO4. Click 'Open Directory' and browse to where ever MO2 has installed DC Guard Armour (for me that was E:/Games/MO2/Fallout 4 - Fusion Girl/mods/DC Guard Armor 4K). On the BSA tab, tick Create BSA, Create dummy plugins, Allow compression, and Separate textures BSA. Delete souce files is your choice. but if you don't, make sure you either delete them manually, or hide them with MO2's hide feature. Click Run. Once CAO is done, you'll find a ba2 file and a (ESLified) ESP file in your DC Guard Armour directory. Click MO2's refresh button, and the esp file will appear in the plugins list. Activate it and drag it to an appropriate postion in the plug in list (just before CROSS_CourserStrigidae.esp should be roughtly the right place).
And we done. DC Guard Armour's textures will now load 2 to 3 orders of magnitude faster (seriously, what is with that speed difference?). Now all we need to do is repeat for the other offending mods? Right? Well....

3: The inevitable unwelcome return of the rusty face, 2024 edition, and other exciting things. Yay.

DC Guard Armour is simple. It only overwrites textures from the main FO4 textures, and isn't overwritten by anything else. And that is not true of face and skin mods. I'm going to start with Bodytalk 3/Hairy Men because that is the simpler of the two skins. Both Bodytalk and Hairy Men both have loose textures. Bodytalk overwrites textures from FO4, Hairy Men overwrites textures from Bodytalk.

There are two approaches. One is to use CAO to create texture BA2 and esp files for both mods then make sure that they are loading in the correct order in MO2. But I'm not entirely convinced that FO4 is fully respecting load orders with ESLified ESP files and BA2 archives.

The second approach is to manually resolve the conflicts between Bodytalk and Hairy Men. To do this, we create an empty mod in MO2 (right click -> All Mods -> Create empty mod above). I called mine 'Male Textures Packed'. Open this new empty mod in Windows Explorer, and then open Bodytalk in another Explorer window. Copy the Textures directory from Bodytalk to the new mod, then delete or rename the Bodytalk textures folder (helpful hint: renaming it to Textures.mohidden allows MO2 to display mods with hidden files). Now open Hairy Men in Explorer. Copy its textures folder into your new mod. And when Windows asks if you want to overwrite files, you say yes. Now delete/rename the Hairy Men textures directory. We have successfully resolved the conlicts between Bodytalk and Hairy Men. So now you can CAO to create a textures ba2 file and esp plugin and then delete/rename the textures directory then position the esp somewhere in your plugin list (just after looksmenu.esp worked for me).
And so we arrive at female skins. I recommend using Natural Faces 2k's ba2 version over the loose files version and loading it before the 'Female Textures Packed' mod (or whatever you call your version). The process is the same as the Bodytalk/Hairy Men packing above. The mods to copy textures from are (in order) FusionGirl, HiPoly Faces Redux (seamless kit 2k compatibilty) (if using the current HiPoly faces) Natural Face textures (if you aren't using the BA2 version), then either Darling Skin (for Darling Skin users) or Cridowskin, Cridowskin Face gen, and Cridowskin Fusion Girl patch (for Cridowskin users). Run CAO, delete/rename the various texture directories, and position the new esp files (due to size, CAO created two texture BA2s and two ESPs) after Natural2kFaceTexturesAllInOne.esp, HiPolyFaces.esp and FusionGirl.esp.
Quick note here, I'm using the latest HiPolyFaces, which comes with an optional Seamless Kit 2k Detailed. Don't use it, I was never able to figure out the white neck issue. The Seamless Kit 2k compatibilty works fine.

 

If all has gone well, you should now be able to run FO4, without rusty faces, and with some performance gains (I can now run circles around Diamond City with only a couple of microstutters and an average framerate of about 120 FPS.

If you happen to be using Eli's Armor Compendium, thats another target for CAO to pack into BA2 files, Just don't hide the tools directory, and because it comes with its own ESP file, it won't create a new ESP.

 

Hopefully from this you should be able to diagnose other issues similar to this and fix them yourselves.

 

Honourable mentions:

Sysinternals (for tools I have been using for years professionally, including procmon)
Cridow (for mentioning CAO)
Gka1 (for creating CAO)

 

Edited April 19 by misterpipes