"Immediate" advise sought on updating my ancient body types to the current versions

[anjenthedog]

I run with CBBE-3BBB (the original) and BHUNP (v1), partly due to the presumed compilations complications of "redesigning" my player characters (five in all), at least if I want to "retain" my present shapes and details, and some to nothing more than laziness, if I'm being honest.

 

It's time I stopped waffling and finally update. 

 

But... because it's never as simple as "just update it", ('specially when so much time has passed and the mod list has grown to over 600), I'm looking for any advise you can offer to do it right, and minimize any necessarily associated "pain" before I leap.

 

I'd like to get this done within a few days, so if you have anything to offer on  the process, please drop a line now. 

 

Thanks

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by anjenthedog
unnecessary sentence... and a typo

[traison]

My recommendation would be to not worry, and just update. But as with any mod change, don't put yourself in a situation where you can't go back. If using MO2, don't replace the existing body mod with the new one.

 

If using MO2 and you haven't been keeping the overwrite folder empty, create a manual backup of it before proceeding.

Edited October 31, 2023 by traison

[anjenthedog]

Vortex here, but thanks for the reminder to back up my presets. 

[traison]

Another thing that may or may not affect your decisions is that if you go from CBBE-3BBB (which as far as I know is diffrent from the first version of 3BA) to some verison of 3BA you may find that you'll have to start converting more outfits yourself. Even though some claim to be 3BAv2, they're actually 3BA(v1), CBBE-SMP or even some more obscure CBBE-3BBB variants. It's usually not too bad to do the conversion because its still essentially CBBE->CBBE, but some outfits can be problematic. I suppose in some sense you're already seeing this issue, as newer body versions will look slightly different; but add to that missing sliders because the outfit mod was mislabeled.

 

I would still recommend nothing less than 3BAv2 (or the UNP equivalent), but was it a lot of work to get current (popular) outfits synced? Yes. TAWOBA, for instance, I had to remake. Remodeled Armor was another massive project. It's mostly just clicking a few thousand times (because Outfit Studio still can't be automated), but still.

 

So now you wonder why I'm being an asshat sitting on these presumably converted and fixed outfit packs and not releasing them to the community. The answer to that is that I feel like my hasty conversions and fixes are maybe not doing the original author's work justice. Sure I clicked a lot of buttons, but having to sculpt those outfits from scratch is an entirely different matter.

[anjenthedog]

Hmm... do v2 outfits "not work at all" with v3, or are they simply limited in scope (and need built using their own native presets, which need to duplicate the "main" naked body settings where shared)

 

Like for CBBE outfits for a CBBE-3BBB character? For example, I use some older CBBE components in my CBBE-3BBB player's outfit. They were fitted to a custom CBBE body preset which ~duplicates my 3BBB-Amazing naked body preset, in order to maintain form when clothing is swapped)

 

So if they literally won't work, that's a problem. But if it's just "nuisance", been there done that, I'll get through it. I use a pretty well fixed set of armor/clothing/etc components at this point, so any tailoring to a couple different CBBE family versions to cover different types/type versions is no big deal (overall). Far less work form my perspective than maintaining game stability anyway  

 

 

[traison]

Not aware of 3BAv3 being a thing, not seen any outfits with that label. But when it comes to 3BAv2 its usually just about missing sliders or the crotch area looking different, but sometimes it requires a lot more work.

 

My notes from Remodeled Armor CBBE SSE 1.2.1:

Spoiler

Issues:

 

* Does not have belly weight painting.

* Does not have thigh weight painting.

* Elven armor does not have pregnancy morph.

* Gilded elven armor does not have pregnancy morph.

* Wench clothing chest trim can only partially be removed.

 

Changes:

 

* Changed all outfits to 3BAv2.

 

My notes from TAWOBA REMASTERED 6.1, which is already 3BAv2 but not uniboob-painted:

Spoiler

No longer breaks Alvor.

 

Issues:

 

* The SOS_Revealing keyword is used incorrectly and does not work.

* Some meshes do not fit the body at all.

* Not converted using uniboob 3BAv2.

* Some NiSkinData offsets are wrong.

 

Changes:

 

* Changed all pieces to light armor.

* Fixed all meshes with bad fit. (Needs more work)

* Reconverted using uniboob 3BAv2.

* Fixed iron gorget and helmet NiSkinData offsets.

* Fixed elven mask NiSkinData offsets.

* Added CBPC keywords.

 

This kind of pattern goes for pretty much every outfit I pick up. Practically every outfit with physics, I've had to redo the physics to some degree. So either I like weird outfits, or the quality of outfits leaves something to be desired for a perfectionist like me. Edit: Perfection is subjective. Also I suppose I should mention that my mod setup is extremely customized and running on a foundation of old mod versions for the most part. The SOS issue in TAWOBA could very well be because the SOS version I have actually checks for the keyword, and not doing string matching with SKSE's keyword functions; SOS_Revealing as it was implemented would work with the latter method. The physics thing could also stem from my entirely custom physics presets.

Edited November 1, 2023 by traison