Merging NPC Cosmetic Overhauls [solved?]

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Some top tier people have made merged overhauls before (I'm using one for my generics!), so I know it's possible, but I'm having trouble assembling my own.

 

I'm using the tes5edit merge plugins script to smoosh together like 30 individual NPC overhauls, but their facegens are always a huge mess. All the bsa's are already unpacked, so they aren't being overwritten somewhere... They're all vanilla NPCs, so the facegens/tints shouldn't be in any esp specific folder...

 

This is a huge amount of NPCs (nearly all of them!), so testing and bug checking each one is super tedious. Tonight I'm going to try making a patch first, then merging everything plus that patch. The main issue seems to be the merge script ignoring the plugin order, but I've tried to make that a non-issue by manually removing all conflicts ahead of time, though something is still going wrong somewhere.

 

ANY tips would be appreciated! 

It feels like I'm doing a step wrong somewhere and its driving me crazy. >.<;

[Guest]

Are the facegen meshes and textures of the winning merged record also winning your mods manager overwrites?

 

I am assuming by merging multiple overhauls you are selecting which NPC_ record wins, you would also need to do the same for their facegen assets, matching the overhaul with the winning NPC_ record.

[深淵の神]

Merge Plugins

 

I had never tried Xedit to merge but I always use this tool for a long time and everything runs smoothly with the FaceGen records

This tool is easy to learn and it merges everything in a single new folder in the load order, you should take a look ?

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3 hours ago, Hawk9969 said:

Are the facegen meshes and textures of the winning merged record also winning your mods manager overwrites?

 

I am assuming by merging multiple overhauls you are selecting which NPC_ record wins, you would also need to do the same for their facegen assets, matching the overhaul with the winning NPC_ record.

No mod manager. What's in there loose matches the winning record. Unmerged, the NPCs look correct.

I just finished the patch and am double checking all the race records right now, so hopefully I'll catch whatever BS shouldn't be transferring. 

1 minute ago, サマエル said:

Merge Plugins

 

I had never tried Xedit to merge but I always use this tool for a long time and everything runs smoothly with the FaceGen records

This tool is easy to learn and it merges everything in a single new folder in the load order, you should take a look ?

That tool didn't work for me at all when I tried it, which is why I'm using the older script. I don't think it has support for not using any manager.

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Welp, I have no idea what I did differently this time around (maybe it was the patch?) but so far everyone but some of the kids are perfect!

 

The kids make sense, because the mix I use is pretty busted, but I couldn't be happier with the general population~