.esm / .esp / CK issues

[Sunja44]

Ok, let me explain what I have done so far and what I want to do:

 

I made special follower.esps for all my followers and want to adjust/complement them by new mods I have installed (Eyes of Beauty, SG Hair Pack 268, SG Eyebrows), but let's have a look only on my Lydia.esp as an example.

 

I formerly already changed face shape, lips, makeup, hairs etc. of Lydia (only CharGenParts and CharGenMorphs, nothing else, outfit control is delivered by EFF, my follower mod) and saved everything to an .esp file called "Lydia Dawnguard.esp". Master files are Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, ApachiiHairFemale.esm. I needed the Dawnguard.esm for her to actually be able to change her eyes, because as my spouse I turned her into a vampire by the Dawnguard Volkihar radiance quest "The Gift".

 

So her .esp is dependant on Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, ApachiiHairFemale.esm. Everything worked fine. She looked as she should look and no conflict with my follower mod EFF (I know there are sometimes conflicts, because follower mods usually edit some stuff in the actor window too, but no, worked great even with the EFF.esp below in load order, no overrides).

 

Now I installed SG Hair Pack 268, SG Eyebrows and Eyes of Beauty. 

 

SG Hair Pack 268 comes along with SGHairPackBase.esm and SGHairPackAIO.esp, the esp. is dependant on Skyrim.esm and SGHairPackBase.esm

SG Eyebrows comes along with an .esp only, dependent on Skyrim.esm.

Eyes of Beauty comes along with just an .esp, dependant on Skyrim.esm and Update.esm

 

Now I just wanted to add the content of the above files to my existing Lydia.esp by loading them all into the CK. So I loaded Lydia.esp as active file and checked in addition to the extisting dependencies (Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, ApachiiHairFemale.esm), the SGHairPackAIO.esp (dependant on Skyrim.esm and SGHairPackBase.esm), SGEyebrows.esp (dependent on Skyrim.esm) and EyesofBeauty.esp (dependant on Skyrim.esm and Update.esm)

 

Loading was fine, I found all the new stuff (SG Hairstyles, new eyes and brows) in the CK CharGenParts window menue drop downs, adjusted them to my likeness, extracted the FacenGendata and saved the changes to Lydia.esp.

 

The first thing I realized, that looking at my Lydia.esp in the NMM only the SGHairPackbase.esm was shown as dependency, not the new .esps I added...and after loading a saved game (all dependant esms and .esps were above in load order in compare to the Lydia.esp) I got a Lydia with a vanilla head and face discoloration bug. None of my changes were implemented.

 

I fiddled around with load order (below and above EFF), didn't help.

 

So any idea what I did wrong? Do I maybe need to convert all those .esps into .esm files to be recognized correctly or do I need to make a complete new Lydia.esp and not only changing the old one? maybe just too many dependancies, are there limits?

 

There should be people out there who do not use the above eye, brow and hair packs for beautifying a player char by Racemenu but for changing NPCs instead. Someone must have done it before.

 

[Veladarius]

The Creation Kit wont keep the esp as a master when you save your esp but there is a way around it. In Wrye Bash right click on the esp's you want to use as masters and there is an option to esmify it. This will make the CK think it is a master and will allow you to use the esp as a master. When you are done just go back into Wrye Bash and espify the files you esmified. 

[Sunja44]

Thx, I assumed that and already read about Wyre Bash and that this tool is able to esmify esp files.

 

Problem is, now I have somehow to install Wyre Bash for an already far advanced modded Skyrim and I use Win7 and as far as I now WyreBash should not be installed into the program files folder, but at best in the games folder (where NMM lurks too). 

 

 

[Veladarius]

It should not be a problem. I use NMM for installing/uninstalling mods and Wrye Bash for the utilities. If you have both open and need to change mod order use NMM as Wrye Bash will update its order but it does not work in reverse.

[Sunja44]

Issue is not NMM. Wrye Bash tells me to install it into the games folder together with my complete Skyrim installation.

 

I just installed it into my program folder where my Skyrim steam intallation is located too and have no issues so far. I can launch it and it detects all my mods. That's sufficient, because I use NMM for installing/deinstalling too, I just need Wrye Bash for some extra tools.

[xiaojin80]

You wouldn't have happened to remember the pass to the hairpack by any chance, would you?