(Solved) How to permanently fix neck-gap on some NPCs?

[libertyordeath]

Important: This is about neck-gaps, not neck-seams (as in the head looks detached, because the body-mesh and head-mesh dont align properly, thus creating a "gap").

 

Did a websearch and learned it has to do with actor weight being out-of-sync between the savegame and esp. Targeting the NPC and typing "setnpcweight NUM" in the console supposedly fixes it.

 

Tried that, and yes it indeed fixes it. Until i restart skyrim, then it's back again. So whatever setnpcweight does, it's not being stored in the savegame. How do i make it permanent?

 

EDIT: I don't have access to CK (GOG-user), but i know my way around XEDIT.

Edited May 8, 2023 by libertyordeath

[traison]

Is it possible that the facegen files were generated with weight 1.0 and then the actor was changed to weight 0.5? Never tried this. If that's the case, all you need to do in xEdit is trial-and-error you way through the values from 0 to 1 until the gap is gone? Just a thought.

[Just Don't]

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/85565

NPC weight is baked into your save, when there's a discrepancy (because you installed a mod editing the npc's weight mid-save?) you'll get the neck gap. That mod makes it so data is not retrieved from the save, but your plugins.

[libertyordeath]

1 hour ago, traison said:

Is it possible that the facegen files were generated with weight 1.0 and then the actor was changed to weight 0.5? Never tried this. If that's the case, all you need to do in xEdit is trial-and-error you way through the values from 0 to 1 until the gap is gone? Just a thought.

Traison, this explanation makes way too much sense. This is Skyrim. Of course it has to be weirder and more complicated. Translation: Just tried that in increments of 10. It makes absolutely no difference. Then ingame - just out of curiousity - i played around randomly with setnpcweight on the affected char. And things got weirder, because every single value made the problem go away. In other words: Just using setnpcweight at all seems to make the game do something different.

 

Quote

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/85565

NPC weight is baked into your save, when there's a discrepancy (because you installed a mod editing the npc's weight mid-save?) you'll get the neck gap. That mod makes it so data is not retrieved from the save, but your plugins.

Will give that a try. Thank you. This never popped up in my websearches.

Edited May 8, 2023 by libertyordeath

[traison]

Like Just Don't said, the weight is probably baked into the save. When you make changes in xEdit, you'd have to start a new game to see the weight change. That plugin probably changes this however.

[libertyordeath]

Umm, first impression of Save Unbaker is.... not good. Why? Well, is has the following line in it's config:

Quote

;Automatically fix neck gaps without using SetNPCWeight command
Auto Update NPC Weights = true

Sounds great, right? Except this seems to either be a legacy feature or simply not implemented. Because on first launch, that line is automatically removed from the config. And yup, gap is still there. 

 

I'll try if changing weight in XEDIT now makes a difference. I mean in theory it should, because otherwise it's not unbaking much.

Edited May 8, 2023 by libertyordeath

[libertyordeath]

Well that's counter-intuitive. Lowering weight closes the gap, and raising weight increases it. Okay.

 

Solution for anyone having the same problem:

 

1. Download the mod User "Just Dont" posted above.

2. Load the mod with the problematic NPC into XEDIT,

3. Navigate to the char in question, scroll down in the right pane and reduce weight by 10. Save.

4. Start Skyrim and load your save. Check if the gap is fixed.

5. If it's gotten better but not fixed, repeat steps 2-4 until you grow sick of restarting Skyrim.

Edited May 8, 2023 by libertyordeath

[Grey Cloud]

18 minutes ago, libertyordeath said:

Well that's counter-intuitive. Lowering weight closes the gap, and raising weight increases it. Okay.

Sometimes you can tell whether to increase or decrease the weight. If the neck is wider than the top of the body then increase the weight. If the neck is narrower than the top of the body then decrease the weight. It can be hard to tell if the difference is small.

 

There is an answer to this somewhere in the LE section. I know because I gave it. Unfortunately I haven't touched Skyrim for over a year so I can't quite remember what the solution was.

 

It was something like this:

Make a note of what the body weight is in XEdit.

In game set weight to 1 then set to whatever the correct weight is.

If that doesn't work try setting to 100 then setting to correct weight.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Grey Cloud