Neck and Hand Gaps

[Surrealism]

I've spent 3 days now working on this issue, and after constant troubles in fixing it myself with varying degrees of extremeness in the methods I've tried, I'm at a loss. Things I've tried on my own and using solutions to similar problems found by others have all failed. There's a very persistent gap between my characters' necks and bodies, and between the hands and arms. Not seams, but actual see through, transparent gap lines. This happens with any body mod I install, albeit to varying degrees of severity, but it happens nonetheless.

 

Sevenbase by far shows the most gap, especially the bombshell version. Even the TBBP version is not working like it should be I believe since at 0 weight there is a tiny seam, and it gets more noticeable as weight increases. Judging by many screenshots I've seen of other characters in other games, this should not be happening. I've also tried the UNPB Redux body, and the older UNPB body (2-4 I think? Before I took a break from skyrim for a month or so and began to change my characters again, I didn't have this issue). The UNPB bodies aren't as noticeable, but the gaps are still there. I believe I first began to notice problems after using RealVision and UNP Texture Blend around the same time, and I've been noticing it since, though the first problem was the deeply sunken neck thing. I've also noticed an argonian male in the loading screens in game that has a neck gap, so the problem must be with more than just my character.

 

EDIT: I'd also like to note, on my character, my feet seem to have no gap problems that I can notice. I'm also not using any sort of head mesh, just vanilla, which leads me to believe that possibly something is wrong with the vanilla head mesh on my PC that's surviving reinstalls or with something going on with how my meshes and textures/skeleton are being installed.

 

Some of the solutions I've tried

- Complete reinstall of the game, including deleting saves (4 times)

- Uninstalling and reinstalling each body mod, texture mod, and skeleton

- Playing in vanilla lighting as well as in ENB (tried both Project and RealVision)

- Using just body mods with vanilla textures

- Using UNP texture blend (actually keeps making the problem worse if anything. Several times, especially with 7B bodies, using it turned the somewhat thin gap into something resembling a sunken neck with thick shadows around it)

- Immediately followed clean installs with a body install w/ the latest version of XPMS, only to find gaps present immediately

- Used different texture files from various mods in various combinations

- Tried a few different skeletons, but my main one is XPMS 1.81, so I doubt that's the issue.

 

So I have 3 guesses myself as to what the problem could be:

A. It's a normal thing for everyone and I only just noticed it, possibly caused by meshes not matching perfectly and being noticed only by a few people.

B. Something Skyrim related is lingering in my PC and causing problems even after reinstalling, or 

C. I'm doing something wrong, though I do use NMM to install just about everything.

 

Does anyone have any ideas about why this is happening or how I could fix it? I'd really appreciate it, as this is driving me crazy and ruining my experience

 

Here's my load order (though I doubt it's the issue at all since the problem persists with just a body mod + everything else vanilla) and a picture of the TBBP body with max weight, I can get ones showing the issue more if needed.

 

[srayesmanll]

I use the ADEC body and armors and have never seen this issue at all.  I would normally suspect the skin texture(s) being used, or maybe leavings from other installs still in the mesh and/or texture folders.  Do you use a mod manager of some type for the installing or do you do it manually (actually, I see the bashed patch so I'm assuming Wrye)?  From your description, it seems that you started from a clean base, but I would try it again.  This time, remove all mods (get back to a vanilla state), delete the mesh and textures folders out of the data folder if they are still there (to insure no droppings left behind), then use steam to verify the cache.  Once done, launch Skyrim and start a new character (no mods, strictly vanilla) and see if the issues are happening.  Then add the body only (no textures or other mods, ONLY the body mod) and start a new game again, and see if the problems reappear.  Then add the textures and try again (again new game).  And so on, adding 1 body-based mod (armors, textures, eye, hair, etc) at a time to see if you can find the ultimate culprit.

 

[Surrealism]

I use NMM exclusively really, but I do occasionally mix and match walking/idle animations and textures manually. I installed Wrye Bash a few hours ago as yet another desperate attempt to find a way to fix this, but haven't done anything with it so far. That's the weirdest thing actually though, I've uninstalled Skyrim several times, deleted all folders in its steam directory including the Skyrim folder itself, deleted the My Games folder, and even searched for and deleted everything with "Skyrim" in its name. I've also stopped steam from using cloud saving. I did just try validating again, three times actually, and something weird happened. The first time 2 files were validated that were over 2kb, then the 2nd and 3rd time it validated apparently the same file, since both times it validated 752 bytes. It did the same thing on my previous reinstall too. I have no clue why it would be doing that :/ it kinda makes me think Skyrim may be broken on my end somewhere.

 

I'll try your suggestion, who knows, maybe it'll work this time. Skyrim never fails to surprise me at every turn. In the meantime, if anyone has any iadvice about my issue or the issue with steam validating the same over and over,  it would be greatly appreciated 

[srayesmanll]

When I'm refreshing the cache (which I do WAAAYY too often because I become bored with a character and create new ones, always doing a refresh cache/mod update/mod reinstall), there is ALWAYS one file that steam says it needs to redownload (haven't ever done a true redownload of all skyrim esms-just an uninstall of all mods and tossing of some folders in the data folder).  Don't know what that file is, but it redownloads it every time I refresh cache.  That's probably the 752 byte file that you are seeing.  I think it's normal (or should I say, Bethesda normal ), so I wouldn't worry about that one too much.

[The DarkSlayer]

My brother reported to me the same problem but it only pops up on brokefoots UNPB mashup collection

 

 

 

 

 

At first I thought it was the TBBP skeleton causing it so we tried the no bounce version but it's still there.

So I just advised him to use other outfits instead .

[Surrealism]

When I'm refreshing the cache (which I do WAAAYY too often because I become bored with a character and create new ones, always doing a refresh cache/mod update/mod reinstall), there is ALWAYS one file that steam says it needs to redownload (haven't ever done a true redownload of all skyrim esms-just an uninstall of all mods and tossing of some folders in the data folder).  Don't know what that file is, but it redownloads it every time I refresh cache.  That's probably the 752 byte file that you are seeing.  I think it's normal (or should I say, Bethesda normal ), so I wouldn't worry about that one too much.

 

Well that part is a relief at least x.x, and not really surprising. "Bugthesda" is a name I saw someone use on a forum once, it fits them perfectly sometimes

 

Anyways, I'll be back around later today. Another fresh install of Skyrim is on the way from my slow internet. I did find out about another Skyrim data location that for some reason my search derped out on, the AppData folder. I deleted everything in there, so maybe something new will happen this time with that + your suggestion, I'll post here about it later. Thanks for your help so far!

 

and @The DarkSlayer,

 

Very beautiful character I must say, sucks that that dreaded gap is on her too  . Armors don't really have much of an effect on my neck gap surprisingly, they wreak havoc on the hands when they do have a gap effect though.

[johnnyboy88]

Whenever I have a gap between the head/neck and wrist/ankles I find that it's due to a mismatch between the mesh and body weight. Try using the racechangemenu to adjust your weight slider and see if that helps.

[shedidwhat]

I have weightpainted my own UNP Base and Skinny TBBP female body in 3DS Max and I have the gaps ( is why I have never shared )

with Dragons skeleton and again with xp32's skeleton and also adec TBBP skeleton

 

From what I can figure its where the weightpainting on the end of the arms, neck and legs does not

match perfectly with the hands, bottom of neck and feet verts

 

Its seems to be almost impossable to get them exported perfectly, and if it does come out perfect, its only perfect when naked

so when you put on armor and that body has different weightpainting on those verts you can get gaps again.

also if a mesh is loaded and then weightpainted on a certain skeleton version and its not the one you use

or it gets updated you run the chance on getting gaps yet again.

 

there is also many different hand meshes, head meshes as well as feet and each is just a little different

 

so I dont think its anything wrong with your setup, its the difference in the body parts weightpainting.

 

though all of this is just my opinion and I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my life.

[Surrealism]

Whenever I have a gap between the head/neck and wrist/ankles I find that it's due to a mismatch between the mesh and body weight. Try using the racechangemenu to adjust your weight slider and see if that helps.

 

It doesn't cure the problem, though with does seem to have an effect on it. The Sevenbase TBBP body's gap is much more noticeable at max weight. It's less noticeable at minimum, though it is still there if I look very close. It seems like maxing the weight pushes the gap down further and makes it more noticeable. The bombshell body's gap is about the same that I can see regardless of weight, and the other variants are the least noticeable with any weight setting. I appreciate the input, there is definitely at least some influence by weight on the gaps on at least some of the bodies.

 

 

I have weightpainted my own UNP Base and Skinny TBBP female body in 3DS Max and I have the gaps ( is why I have never shared )

with Dragons skeleton and again with xp32's skeleton and also adec TBBP skeleton

 

From what I can figure its where the weightpainting on the end of the arms, neck and legs does not

match perfectly with the hands, bottom of neck and feet verts

 

Its seems to be almost impossable to get them exported perfectly, and if it does come out perfect, its only perfect when naked

so when you put on armor and that body has different weightpainting on those verts you can get gaps again.

also if a mesh is loaded and then weightpainted on a certain skeleton version and its not the one you use

or it gets updated you run the chance on getting gaps yet again.

 

there is also many different hand meshes, head meshes as well as feet and each is just a little different

 

so I dont think its anything wrong with your setup, its the difference in the body parts weightpainting.

 

though all of this is just my opinion and I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my life.

 

I really am doubting that it's a problem on my end too since it's still present after yet another reinstall of Skyrim and deleting of the new folder I found. It's really more noticeable at certain angles more than others as well, I'm guessing that could just be because of the color behind my character, shows in the gap more. I just don't get how some people have the problem, and others have never encountered or noticed it before if it's a problem with the meshes themselves. The armors and their effect on hand gaps makes sense though, I've noticed some seem to have their own mesh when I previously thought they just went over the installed mesh. For me, it happens nude too. If all fails with Sevenbase I'll just go back to UNPB since it's at least considerably less noticeable. 

 

But yeah, just reinstalled Skyrim again fresh and the gaps, while seemingly slightly less noticeable (so slightly that I'm not sure if it's just me or they actually are lessened now), are still here with Sevenbase. If the problem can't be fixed entirely, I think I'm at least at a point where I can tolerate it. If reinstalling the game and deleting everything isn't gonna fix it, I think it's more likely that it can't be fixed or I'm just obsessing over the problem and my eyes are looking for it now >.<

[hayden295]

Ya I have this same problem though it seams to go away when I equip a UNP armor so this leads me to belive its a problem with the UNPB body mesh.

 

Then again all this stuff is way beyond my comprehension.

[gvman3670]

I had this problem before. I tried starting a new game, uninstalling and reinstalling bodies. BUT, when I got paying attention and really looking at what Mod Organizer was trying to tell me I noticed that Zaz Animation pack was overwriting the head mesh .tri files. So I reordered priorities in the Mod Organizer left pane and the gaps were gone. Just making sure Zaz wasn't overwriting ECE or the body mod fixed my issue.

[Kahlan170]

Not sure if this issue has been solved yet, but I will say that I've enver had this issue until I began using Texture blend. Specifically for UNP body. The issue didn't begin right away, but after messing with various things on the nornal, color, and specular maps with hand body and head textures, I began to see the issue. I use SP's textures, but use things like body mod and fitness body blended over it. Hope this helps marrow the possibilities. Also, my character is set at 0 weight. Changing the "shoulder" setting in in the racemenu will fix this, but only temporarily as it seems to re-appear after zoning/re-loading or something.

[Cymri]

I have the saaame problem, and it also only started after UNP TexBlend!

[Coopervane]

Do note that screen-resolution can play a part.

 

With UNPB, i get a small gap between the hands and arms at 720p, aswell other visual anomalies in the game, especially things involving Alpha-channels you can sometimes see the outline of the mesh (which should be invisible due to the Alpha) and things like that.

 

If i raise the game's resolution to 1080p, all these problems go away.

 

 

Sadly though, i can't get a solid 60fps at 1080p, so i'm rather stuck with it

[Cymri]

OK got it.

 

Weight slider did nada and manual player.setnpcweight 100 just made the gap bigger, but setting weight 101 or higher made it OK, and setting racemenu weight slider to 0 while console typing 101 kept char weight OK/not landwhale while making gap gone.   Gotta do it each character and save.  (Shakes fist at game)