Porting some follower mods to SSE causes the eyes to disappear - and the solution

[lesliegor]

Recently I ported some follower mods which all can be found here:

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/119279-9damao-and-baidu-download-request-thread/

 

The followers I ported are Naestra, Mskim2.0, Amanda, Apple, Abigaile and Serana1, which are all from the same Korean modder.

 

Usually I tried not to use SSE nif optimizer if I can. Because the author (jonwd7) of nifskope warned people not to blindly use it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/8r6voz/pc_sse_nifoptimizer_dilemma/

 

For instance I use the original Toccata follower oldrim mod from rxkx22. I never use the ported one. The original Toccata works fine in SSE, except the panties needed optimized because of big red ! mark. Every other meshes stay original (Recently I found out Toccata shirt will give the explosion effect if put on other followers. There goes the minimalist effort). The ported one has hairline turn bald problem. Some users on Nexus compaint about it. It was caused by using the optimizer. But it seems the modder who ported it never bother about the problem.

 

What I am saying is, sometimes the optimizer can break something. The original Toccata body and face is fine in SSE. Using optimizer to optimize everything just break something. It actually breaks another follower mod too - Selene Kate follower. Check the "private part" of Selene the ported version you will know something missing.

 

If using oldrim follower mods directly in SSE without porting but crash, usually it is caused by the facegeom nif. Just optimize that nif is enough. Don't need to touch on every other meshes. I like to keep things original as possible.

 

Sometimes it is the skeleton nif that comes with the follower mod causes the crash. I only encountered it once with a follower mod call Kg-12. Just change the skeleton nif is enough. Again, the mod don't need to use optimizer.

 

Whether people worry about form 43 or 44 is up to them. I am not bothered. All my oldrim follower are used with form 43. One time I even played Pirates of Skyrim with form 43, with just all the meshes optimized. The mod is buggy, but happened the same with when I played it in oldrim. Form 44 won't magically make the bugs disappear. Surprise that I could finish playing the mod without much problem.

 

So when I ported the mods from the same Korean modder, I only use the optimizer on the 2 femalebody nif, the outfit nifs and the facegeom nif. Then of course using nif optimizer on facegeom will cause the eye bug that can be fixed by using this method:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5058135-sse-nif-optimizer/page-102#entry54592653

 

The problem is using the above copy-paste fix will cause some follower's eyes go missing, namely mskim2, Amanda, Apple and Serana1 followers. Naestra and Abigaile turns out fine . I once know Miya follower from Ninirim has this missing eye problem and can be solved by changing the eye nialpha flag to 4333:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/ax3ecj/converting_a_follower_from_oldrim_to_sse_no_eyes/

 

But those followers are already at 4333 flag. I am no modder. I know nothing about programming, coding, 3D modelling. So blindly fiddling with nifskope is not something I like to do. I looked for solution on the internet, but found nothing. Maybe the solution is somewhere already, but buried by thousands other words and topics it never gets found. I tried to lower the nialpha to 4000 (blind attempt) just to see what happened. And it strangely caused all other followers' eyes gone missing. This problem is actually something to do with one of the skee64.ini settings:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/anin2f/solution_for_disappearing_eyes_in_sse/

 

Changing the above setting still won't solve the missing eyes problem of those follower mods as it is isolated problem. So after a while searching the net, I gave up.

 

Then I stumbled upon this follower mod and downloaded it:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/94266

 

One of the followers named Blanche causes hang on my pc. Which is unusual because usually when there is a problem with oldrim follower mods, it is either crash, having red exclamation mark, blue or purple textures (missing textures) or exploding effect on outfit, but not freezing the computer. At first I just disabled the follower using Creation Kit. Later on I am curious to see if someone ported it to SSE already and have found the solution. Like I mentioned earlier, I like to keep follower mods as original as possible. If the original mods are from oldrim modder but someone else ported to SSE, I use the oldrim one instead and only optimize the meshes when I SEE the problem, not when I assume there might be a problem. If the original modder has SSE version of his mods, then I just use the SSE version. Sometimes I use the oldrim ones instead. Example Bijin series followers were ported by rxkx22 the original modder. So I just use the SSE version, it would be tedious to look for problem on my own for all those followers and NPC.

 

So I looked into comment section and someone found the solution:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21072?tab=posts

 

I was surprised the modder who ported the mod bchick3 never asked the one who gave the solution how he fixed it with nifskope. The hang problem was caused by the oldrim modder using 2 slot for eyes but SSE only allow one slot, something like that. Maybe he asked him through pm, somehow I doubt it. Sometimes people are just not curious and just want the solution.

 

So out of curiosity, I compared the facegeom nif of this follower Blanche just to see how the guy solved the problem. Never found the solution but somehow comparing two nifs gave me the idea: maybe I should compared the face nif of Naestra and Mskim2.0 just to see if any "discrepancy" between the two that causes one eyes being normal and another gone missing. And I found the difference, and the solution:

 

In nifskope, click the eyes and you will be at bsdynamictrishape - femaleeyes. In the panel below there is a section Vertex Desc. The difference here between Naestra and Mskim2.0 is the Colors option is checked on mskim2. Just click the flag, uncheck Colors, click Accept, save the nif. And the follower's eyes become normal again. Do this with Apple, Abigaile and Serana1 and the missing eyes will be fixed.

 

I still don't know what is that Vertex Desc for and what is the Colors setting for. Why Colors setting can cause these followers' eyes gone missing? I know nothing.

 

Hopefully anyone having this similar problem on SSE with these particular follower mods can find the solution here. Maybe I should have asked people here on loverslab first before going though all this. Maybe more efficient and less time-consuming that way. This wai Serana mod also has eye problem as well in SSE if using the vanilla eye nif copy-paste method, maybe someone here know how to solve it?

https://twitter.com/force5211

https://mega.nz/folder/jglE0RQK#GsURvZ84Xa4s0GbbZwnvsA

 

I am still curious as to how the guy solved the Blanche follower hanging problem.

 

Hope you don't mind the wall of text.

 

[lesliegor]

Sorry. I didn't test it thoroughly last time. Above way of fixing the missing eyes of followers won't be enough, as when you pass through a door (loading screen), it will crash.

 

So you need to change some other things as well:

 

Click on the eyes, you will be at bsdynamictrishape - femaleeyes. Go to panel below, double click the number on Data Size and change it to 0. This will prevent crash.

 

Go to bslightingshadeproperty under bsdynamictrishape - femaleeyes, double click Shader Flags 2 and uncheck/untick Vertex colors. Sometimes the followers' eyes might turn dark in nifskope. This setting change brings back the normal looking eyes.

 

The above 2 settings are made by comparing a nif of a follower with normal eyes to the nif of the one which crash the game. Hope this helps.