Invisible Female Werewolves

[dairy pirate]

Hello you wonderful forum goers!

 

I've hit a dead end trying to figure out what's causing my female werewolves to be completely invisible. Males are unaffected, and it doesn't matter what combination of mods I have installed, my female werewolf transformation is there while transforming, but once completed there is nothing there whatsoever. When I had Monster Facial Animations installed I had a floating head, but through various combinations of testing I disabled it, leaving nothing visible, no head or anything.

 

I thought the issue lied with the replacers I was using, some kind of issue on my end, but no. This issue is happening with zero werewolf mods installed whatsoever. Vanilla female werewolves are also invisible. Everything I've had installed is working perfectly for male werewolves (including Diverse Werewolf Collections).

 

I stepped away from playing Skyrim for about five years, and have come back to play the game again. I've never had this issue before, on console, or on my previous PC set up. I think I have an idea on what is causing the issue (based on other reports of certain NPC overhauls or skin mods causing issues, but I don't have any of the ones mentioned installed), but I have come up with nothing in my search.

 

If anyone could give me some guidance on what's going wrong, I would appreciate it. I'm including my modlist (some mods are disabled, but that's just for testing purposes), to see if something in there is the culprit that I'm just not seeing or able to find documentation for.

 

Thanks in advance, I hope someone can help me out. I just want werewolf tiddies 😭

modlist.txt

[shadowlord445]

Do you have an npc mod that alters Aela's appearance?  If so, you might have to open MNC and the appearance mod with xedit and drag MNCs werewolf armor addon data over to the other mod

[dairy pirate]

So, I do have Coldsun's AIO NPC Replacer (I'm pretty sure this is the only visual replacer I have that touches Aela) but I'm not running MNC. All I have is a very basic SexLab set up, I only have nine mods installed, and one animation pack. I might add other animations later, but that's neither here nor there.

 

I ran into a similar issue in the past, where a Valerica replacer of all things was referencing the werewolf mesh, preventing me from using anything other than vanilla, but I could still transform, my werewolves just had the vanilla appearance instead of the replacer I was trying to use. I'm pretty sure my comment is still up on that post.

[dairy pirate]

Not to bump my own thread or anything, but I still haven't figured out what's going wrong.

[MadMansGun]

Quote

HDT werewolves Diverse WW patch
HDT Werewolves - CBPC
Diverse Werewolves Collection - Player Replacer
Diverse Werewolves Collection
La Femme Lycana SSE Official Author Port
Monster Lipsync SE - DWC

that's a bad mix of mods to say the least, and your Serana mods are also suspect.

if you are using vortex then that is also likely screwing you over, it has a nasty habit of not actually uninstalling mods when you tell it to.

[dairy pirate]

Thank you so much for the reply! Honestly the only reason I went with those is that TWO has changed too much from what it was before. I'm not super interested in the MNC requirements or the sole reliance on SMP physics either. It was my understanding that to get what I wanted I had to use HDT Werewolves. I also want the customization options, hence Diverse Werewolves Collection.

 

I didn't have all that running at the same time though. I just left them in my mod list (even though they are disabled). When I couldn't get HDT Werewolves to work I tried out La Femme Lycana, but when even that didn't work I removed every visual werewolf mod from my game and I still couldn't get female werewolves to work properly. With only Growl and this mod installed my female werewolves are completely invisible. Males have no problem showing up, its just female werewolves (with no visual overhauls it should just be the single werewolf mesh). Dragon Avatar claims it doesn't touch anything to do with werewolves, and I can't find anything in Coldsun's NPCs AIO that touches werewolf transformation either. I even tested it with just Dragon Avatar installed, and had the same problem.

 

If you could point me in the right direction of what to fix with my Serana mods (just Serana Dialogue Overhaul and the replacer included in the AIO) I would eternally grateful. I've looked already but I can't find anything, but I'm definitely an amateur when it comes to xEdit, so its entirely possible I've missed something.

 

I'm sorry if I've repeated myself or if this tmi, I'm just struggling here and I have no clue where I'm going wrong.

 

EDIT: Also I use MO2, forgot to mention lmao.

Edited May 4, 2025 by dairy pirate
missing info

[danna233]

Either sexlab or max skeleton does this. Either way, after I removed all the skeletons and creature meshes, the female vanilla werewolves became visible. But, I don't use any creature mods and I don't have any Fnis creatures, so my game wasn't broken. All my creatures use vanilla resources.

[dairy pirate]

Well, I figured out what the problem was. And yep, it was Coldsun's Visions.

 

Sigh. I actually switched to his replacers all those years ago because my Valerica replacer had a reference to the vanilla werewolf for some reason. Now I have to go hunting for that record and remove it.

 

Oh well, at least if anyone else is having the same issue as me, this will be here to help them.

 

I have no idea what danna233 is going through, though. I have never had that issue. I am almost 100% its not sexlab or your skeleton mod (unless you installed them incorrectly of course).

[danna233]

That's weird. I thought invisible Aela was a common bug. At least it haunted me in every game until I cleared my mesh folder.

[dairy pirate]

It is a common bug, but its when you have a werewolf replacer and/or a npc replacer for Aela. At least, that's what my research has told me.

 

Also, just adding that I've given up on getting any werewolf replacers to work, HDT Werewolves was causing me too many issues, so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just install TWO. Sigh.

 

As a side note, with just Growl and the Aela replacer installed the invisible female werewolves issue isn't there any more! Todd's words haunt me.

 

I fucking hate this game, why I ever decided to mod on pc I'll never know.

Spoiler

this is sarcasm, I love this game but honestly it makes me wanna scream sometimes

 

[theacidrains]

Dealing with the same problem rn. Could you help me? How exactly did you fix the problem involving the Aela replacer mod?

[dairy pirate]

Sorry I didn't see this for so long!

 

I didn't actually have an issue with the Aela replacer mod. Turns out it was a weird interaction/bug with The New Gentleman. 

 

I can't remember exactly what I did to fix it, but it was something to do with reloading the add-on (in the little pop-up window, mine is set to 'B', which I think is not the default) and then reloading the save. 

 

At least those are the steps I took when my vampire lord replacer was also appearing invisible. I went a googling and found more or less what I detailed above.

 

As a side note I also got HDT Werewolves working as a replacer, so it turns out it wasn't any of the mods I thought were the culprit. Just TNG!