ECE Issues

[Deep Red]

I gave ECE another crack today. In the past, I had the problem where I couldn't get it to work with custom races but I solved that recently. The problems just don't seem to end though. I've run into a rather annoying issue with ECE. After painstakingly tweaking my character's face into something I'm satisfied with, I exit the racemenu and am pleased with the results. That's where the problems start though. When I decided to tweak the face a tiny bit more (it doesn't matter which slider I touch), all the changes to the face seem to reset and I end up with a hideous-looking face. Mostly, it's the nose that reverts into the first option for that race while the rest of the face remains largely intact. Also, reloading the saved game after making the changes to the face via showracemenu command the appearance I had worked on reset themselves again. In short, I have to keep performing face sculpturing each time I load my game. Another small oddity I've noticed is that my character's feet seem to sink through the floor a tiny bit with ECE installed. When I revert the changes it made everything returns back to normal again though.

 

The same issues affect both custom and vanilla races equally. I'm curious to know what causes this issue. Some of the things I've done to try to resolve this problem were: reinstalling ECE, reinstalling ECE using Wrye Bash, running BOSS to make sure there are no conflicts, updating BOSS and re-running it. I'm using Skyrim v1.8 and am using the appropriate versions of ECE; I also use Expired6978's RaceMenu, which supports Skyrim 1.8 & SKSE 1.6.9. 

 

Has anyone else ever run into this problem? Is ECE really this difficult to use, or is it just me? What exactly is causing this problem?

 

TL;DR - ECE isn't saving my character's face settings and I have no idea why.

 

Active Mod List:

 

 

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[PsychoMachina]

I use ECE, but not RaceMenu, and do not have any problems with the face resetting.  There are two known causes: 1) the face data is saved, but the game does not load it, or 2) RaceMenu does not save the data as well as or in the same manner as ECE (alone). 

 

Regarding the feet clipping into the ground,  ECE scales down various nodes within a branch to prevent clipping issues.

 

I don't have a guarenteed solution other than try out ECE without RaceMenu.

[Rayblue]

Because of that issue, the documentation problems, and that the author isn't much good with English, the best method is to just write down the values on paper.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I had BFG and Expired's racemenu installed before ECE.

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

Yes, ECE will apparently reset some settings. No idea if anyone else has done this, BUT - you might be able to "save" your character's face as a preset (this is what I do in any case, and I don't even use ECE), which you can use at any time, even with ECE (you might need to manually re-do the nose if ECE resets it, but at least this way you've still got a record of your character's appearance).

 

Here's a tutorial showing how:

 

http://j-u-i-c-e.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-Your-Skyrim-Character-Look-Like-Any-Character-in-the-Game

 

All you need to do is - load your game & character, enter the console, and type "spf yourcharacternameetc." to save an .NPC file in your Skyrim folder. Then take a look at that tutorial. When you get to the part about the "Char Gen Parts" tab, you'll notice there's an "Import" button near the top-right. Press this, and a popup of your Skyrim folder will open. Select your preset, hit "Okay", and your character's appearance will be imported to the plugin you're making with the tutorial.

 

(... I hope that makes sense - I'm really tired & only semi-coherent right now. Oog.)

[lordofthedread]

if ECE is installed correctly and you didnt messed around with your load order your face should be saved. ECE always mess with the presets and there are some incompatibilities with some races that can be avoided by loaing the race mod before CME and ECE esps. If the race is using its own .tri files some sliders wont be available for that race but it will work normally.

 

Usually if your face resets it is also because you changed race or sex, changing race messes with your perks also so you should not touch it anyway.

 

Also ECE gibes you slots where you can save your face, the option appears when you finished to edit your PC using showracemenu command, these presets are saved in a CME folder along with your character saves.

 

Your feet disappearing into the ground is a skeleton issue, not an ECE issue.

[Deep Red]

if ECE is installed correctly and you didnt messed around with your load order your face should be saved. ECE always mess with the presets and there are some incompatibilities with some races that can be avoided by loaing the race mod before CME and ECE esps. If the race is using its own .tri files some sliders wont be available for that race but it will work normally.

 

Usually if your face resets it is also because you changed race or sex, changing race messes with your perks also so you should not touch it anyway.

 

Also ECE gibes you slots where you can save your face, the option appears when you finished to edit your PC using showracemenu command, these presets are saved in a CME folder along with your character saves.

 

Your feet disappearing into the ground is a skeleton issue, not an ECE issue.

 

I tried messing around with my skeleton for both the custom race and vanilla races but I don't think that's the problem at all. Some of my characters seem to suffer this weird problem where others don't. I use only one skeleton for every race to keep things simple. Thanks for the thought though.

 

I use ECE, but not RaceMenu, and do not have any problems with the face resetting.  There are two known causes: 1) the face data is saved, but the game does not load it, or 2) RaceMenu does not save the data as well as or in the same manner as ECE (alone). 

 

Regarding the feet clipping into the ground,  ECE scales down various nodes within a branch to prevent clipping issues.

 

I don't have a guarenteed solution other than try out ECE without RaceMenu.

You were right on both things. ECE and RaceMenu don't seem to play nice at all together. Kinda sucks that you have to choose between the two because I've gotten so accustomed to RaceMenu, even though both menus share the pretty much the same functionality. I disabled RaceMenu and ECE took over smoothly. It no longer reset the changes I made on my character. As for the feet sinking through the ground, I still have no idea what's causing it, but it seems to be specific to only a handful of my characters and seem to be limited to the female ones. For now, I found a quick workaround using the high heels system mod to add a global offset for height.

 

Kind of disappointing that ECE doesn't work with RaceMenu though. Is anyone currently rolling around with both mods active?

[lordofthedread]

Well Racemenu gives nothing more than ECE apart from some warpaints, and there is a shitload of warpaints available, I personally think ECE allows you to tune a face better but is not as user friendly as Racemenu.

 

I saw that there is a new addon for Racemenu giving extra sliders but it is nowhere close to the amount of sliders of ECE yet.

[PsychoMachina]

RaceMenu is a great utility and I'm not bashing it, but people are under the impression that because Expired added some of ECE's features RaceMenu will also function exactly like ECE.  If I'm not mistaken, RaceMenu accesses, not includes, some (not all) functions of ECE.  The operative word is "compatibility" as in RaceMenu was made compatible with ECE.

 

This is where the problems, such as the nose or face resetting, occurs.  Expired tells people to use the sliders in the ECE category and not the sliders from RaceMenu's side, but these problems still persist.  Maybe someone will take on the challenge of including some of RaceMenu's feature to ECE, but I doubt it.

[Deep Red]

Thanks a bunch for the help everyone. Deep inside, I suspected it was a conflict between RaceMenu and ECE but I just didn't want it to turn out true. I'll be using ECE until someone (if anyone) addresses the compatibility issue.

[PsychoMachina]

@lordofthedead

 

I spoke with someone awile back who was interested in learning scripting for Skyrim.  I asked if he can learn MCM and make a UI for ECE similar to RaceMenu.  We'll just have to wait it out for the results.