Strange black pixelated areas or shadow on character skin (Of course it was SSAO)

[jazzboy7]

Update (Fixed):

One of my plugins was re-enabling bSAOenable in the skyrimpref.ini (despite it being disabled in the BETH ini). I went into the profile folder of my MO2 directory and manually edited the skyrimpref.ini located there to disable bSAO. I don't know which one was the culprit, but after manually editing the skyrimpref.ini it hasn't popped up again, hopefully this helps someone in the future.

 

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Hey everyone, I'm driving myself crazy here trying to fix this issue that popped up recently while I was going through and installing some clothing replacers. Please see attached screen:

 

I hadn't noticed this issue before today, I was messing around with a few things, activated some settings in DisplayTweaks, installed some clothing/armor replacers, and a few other mods (Maximum Carnage), etc. Basically I tried to revert back to my pre-messing around state and haven't been able to solve this issue.

 

The Issue:

Black shadow like spots are appearing on skin when viewed relatively closely (the effect dissipates the further away the camera is from the character, eventually disappearing). This seems to be worst when there is a closer 'layer' of skin (Arm "A" in the picture) which borders a second further 'layer' of skin (Arm "B" in the picture). This effect is very obvious during multi-actor animations.

 

In this screenshot I disabled SSAO via the BETH ini, and also turned off all shadows. Additionally, I went through my ENB settings in-game and turned off every single effect including all SSAO. I'm at a loss here and really don't know what to do, as it's hard to ignore now-- although I'm not sure whether this was happening before or not. Has anyone ever seen something like this and know how to fix it?

 

[Dorabella]

Missing mipmap?? Optimizer Textures (Ordenador)

[Grey Cloud]

If you have a problem with skin then why arse about chopping and changing things which affect everything in the game? Try a different skin mod or body mesh.

[RohZima]

3 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

If you have a problem with skin then why arse about chopping and changing things which affect everything in the game? Try a different skin mod or body mesh.

 

This. Seems obvious to me. It is obviously only on that particular mesh so start with that.

 

Weird issue though.

[jazzboy7]

Thanks for the input all, I think in my frantic bid to fix it I was messing with the wrong things-- I did eventually hone in on the skin textures and meshes but wasn't able to fix it that way. But lo! I did find the issue:

 

For anyone else experiencing this problem:

One of my plugins was re-enabling bSAOenable in the skyrimpref.ini (despite it being disabled in the BETH ini). I went into the profile folder of my MO2 directory and manually edited the skyrimpref.ini located there to disable bSAO. I don't know which one was the culprit, but after manually editing the skyrimpref.ini it hasn't popped up again, hopefully this helps someone in the future.