Outfit color different indoors vs outdoors

[Gudulba]

I use this latex outfit mod "Catsuits and Corsets". Of all the numerous outfit mods I'm using, only on these outfits are the colors different indoors and outdoors. Outdoors, the colors look really washed out on the catsuits. Indoors, they look great.

 

Is this something that can be fixed? With NifSkope maybe? 

It has just crossed my mind that it could maybe have something to do with ENB (I use Rudy's ENB for Cathedral Weathers)? I will have to verify that. But even if it is the ENB, I wouldn't want to change the ENB settings as everything else looks fine with ENB.

 

And on a side note:  I would like to make the catsuit's upper end around the neck a bit higher as I can see a strip of skin between the catsuit and a gas mask.
I tried to mess around in Blender, was able to import the .nif. But so far I haven't found out how to edit the mesh...

 

 

Edited July 18, 2025 by Gudulba

[traison]

19 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

But so far I haven't found out how to edit the mesh...

 

When you've selected the mesh you want to edit, press tab to switch to edit mode. F3 to search for what you want to do. With the vertices selected, press G to start moving them. Press Z if you want to lock the movement on the Z axis. Keep in mind the UV when you change vertices: adding vertices may require the new polygons to be UV mapped. Moving vertices may cause visible stretching of the texture.

 

If you want me to edit it, upload the nif here. It seems silly to download >300MiB of stuff just for a 1 MiB nif edit. Also need a screenshot of the problem to know what I'm editing.

 

22 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

Is this something that can be fixed? With NifSkope maybe?
...

it could maybe have something to do with ENB?

 

Yes, maybe and probably.

 

23 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

I wouldn't want to change the ENB settings..

 

I wouldn't start with ENB/CS settings as those would have global repercussions. You may fix the color on the latex suit but now your bandit fur is pink.

 

I would start in NifSkope. Go through things like specular, reflection, refraction, shine, gloss, vertex color and whatever else there is that takes a color value and see if one of them has a color that is close to what you're seeing in-game. Maybe since you said the color is washed-out you'd be looking for a white color. Also remember that you could set these colors to something radical like hot pink to see if it has an effect on the problem - it gives you an idea what you're potentially looking for.

 

Failing that, I'd delete the _msn, _m, _s and _sk texture files and see what happens. Perhaps do it one at a time, otherwise it will be difficult to tell which file had what effect. Once you know which file appears to change the situation, we can look into changing/fixing it.

[Gudulba]

Thank you for your fast reponse. Much appreciated! I have attached the mesh and the corresponding OSD file. I will try to upload screenshots tomorrow.

For comparisons, I have attached the Devious Devices catsuit, whose neck height is ideal combined with the DD gas masks (no gap between catsuit and gas mask). Ideally, the "Catsuits and Corsets" catsuit should have about the same neck height.

 

The only texture files in the mod seem to *.dds and *_n.dds. Will have a look at the NifSkope settings tomorrow.

Catsuit.7z

DD Catsuit.7z

Edited July 18, 2025 by Gudulba

[traison]

Hopefully it doesn't look horrible. Not tested.

 

Edit: Download removed. BodySlide project available below.

 

Edited July 19, 2025 by traison

[Gudulba]

Thank you for your effort! I rebuilt it in BodySlide. There is still a small gap between neck and the Devious Devices gas mask. And the added part doesn't seem to work in BodySlide.

 

The modified catsuit mesh:

 

 

Devious Devices catsuit:

 

In BodySlide, I noticed that the added neck part didn't change with the weight slider:

 

 

I also tried to mess around with the BSLightingSharderProperty values and copied the ones from the DD catsuit. But the colors are still dull outside and the catsuit is far less glossy than the DD catsuit unfortunately...

Edited July 19, 2025 by Gudulba

[traison]

Yeah you'll need to add neck-related slider morphs to the new vertices. I didn't know what body you used so I only eyeballed the already existing weightpaint.

 

Also, that is more than washed out. That's a black suit turning almost entirely white. That's a messed up cubemap, or an issue with complex materials.

 

Edit: Its quite curious how the new polygons have detached themselves from the outfit. I checked in Blender again and there's no overlapping vertices in that area, it's a continuous mesh.

 

Edit again: I see this outfit is only for 3BA, so that answers that question.

 

Edit again: Here's the new bodyslide project. Remade sliders with Uniboob 3BAv2. Head weightpaint copied from HPH 1.4. You'll have to copy over the build path and target nif name from the original catsuit project if you want this to replace it; this is in the included osp file (OutputPath and OutputFile). Not tested.

Catsuit_w_collar_wp_bs.7z

Edited July 19, 2025 by traison

[Gudulba]

Sorry, yes, should have mentioned it's for 3BA.

Thank you! Almost perfect. Just some minor clipping.

Here's with ENB on (glossy, but washed out):

 

And here with ENB off (not glossy, but also not washed out):

[traison]

That will be easier to fix on your end with the tools in outfit studio. If the clipping section moves when you move the head up/down, then it's probably the weight paint that is wrong (i.e. you're not using HPH). A simpler workaround would be to move those vertices outwards a tiny bit.

[Gudulba]

Thanks to your Blender instructions, I have been able to get rid of the clipping. Thank you for all your support so far! 🙂

 

Still investigating regarding the washed out colors.

[traison]

Did you go through the nif file's properties yet?

[Gudulba]

Yes, I had a look at it in NifSkope and for testing purposes, I set all properties to the same values as from another outfit mod, even copied over the four texture paths from that mod and rebuilt in BodySlide, but always the same outcome with the washed out colors...

[Gudulba]

I have just noticed that with the catsuit's modified neck version, I get clipping on the catsuit with the mod's additional corsets. Is this something I can fix on my end?

Screenshot

[traison]

That's because when I remade the sliders I built it for 3BAv2 uniboob. You most likely have 3BA or some other variant/fork of CBBE. Thus, 2 options:

1. Rebuild everything else for 3BAv2.
2. Rebuild the catsuit for the body you're using.

Skintight suits are as simple as it gets when it comes to rebuilding sliders:

1. Open the catsuit in Outfit Studio.
2. Check all slider checkboxes on the right.
3. Delete sliders, and make sure they're all gone.
4. Load your reference body.
5. Ctrl + C, accept the defaults.
6. Make sure sliders work by wiggling one of them. If they don't work, close OS and redo 1-6.
7. Make sure the catsuit is selected.
8. Copy bone weights, accept the defaults.
9. Delete the reference body and any other parts that may have come with it.
10. Ctrl + S
11. Close Outfit Studio and BodySlide.
12. Open BodySlide and build the project.

Edited July 25, 2025 by traison

[Gudulba]

Awesome, thank you, that worked like a charm! Yes, I indeed use CBBE 3BA.

 

As for a long time the problematic doggie belt from ZAZ Animation Pack for CBBE has bugged me, I tried this method also with it, but so far only with limited luck. There a various 3BA fixes available for the doggie belt (with waist squeeze effect and without), but either I get an invisible body with them or neck seam or neck/wrist/ankle seams.

 

I tried to convert the original doggie belt (with squeeze effect) from CBBE to 3BA with the method you described, but while the body in BodySlide looks fine to me, in-game it is like being a bit inflated, which leads to neck/wrist/ankle seams:

Spoiler

 

That's how it looks in NifSkope:

Spoiler

 

Is there also some magic trick to fix this?

[traison]

The neck is just 2 incompatible meshes. Either the head isn't made for the body, or the body isn't made for the head. 3BA is compatible with the vanilla neck, but I don't know much about heads. I only recently switched to HPH and it's also vanilla compatible.

 

Edit: Or did you save the BS project as single-weight (i.e. for Fallout 4)? The project needs to be low-high-weight. Test the weight slider in BodySlide. If the neck hole doesn't change size between low-high then you've made a Fallout 4 outfit rather than a Skyrim one.

 

As for the wrists, forgot to build hands in BodySlide?

 

3BA as far as I know doesn't come with 1st person hand projects which means if you change the wrist size slider any there will always be a gap in 1st person, but that's at least for the moment irrelevant.

 

I got those projects here if you want them, but like I said it won't fix your current hand problem.

Edited July 27, 2025 by traison

[Gudulba]

I use HPH 1.4 and CBBE 3BA. It's like this doggie belt is jinxed as it's the only outfit item from all my dozens of outfit mods to give me this issue.

 

I tried the conversion wizard to convert it from CBBE to 3BA. I tried to export the mesh and import it and various other ways. Sliders are always working, pretty sure it's low-high-weight. But it always results in the neck seam and slightly blown up body in the game...

 

In case you can spare a few minutes, I have attached the doggie belt from the original ZAZ 2023 CBBE archive.

 

Here's a supposedly fixed version, but this also gives me the neck seam: https://www.loverslab.com/topic/100381-zaz-animation-packs-for-se/page/38/#findComment-4251301

ZaZ Animation Pack+ CBBE HDT V.8.0+SE2023.7z

[traison]

The mesh you uploaded here is some old variant of UNP, this is not even base CBBE.

 

Please clarify what you wanted me to do here.

 

Edit: I made a quick conversion to 3BAv2 with OS if you want it.

Edited July 29, 2025 by traison

[Gudulba]

Ah, that would explain why all the conversion attempts failed I guess when it's not even CBBE...

 

Thanks for the conversion! I would be glad to have it 🙂  Can I then convert it according to your earlier instructions regarding the catsuit conversion?

[traison]

16 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

Can I then convert it according to your earlier instructions regarding the catsuit conversion?

 

The pregnancy slider will most likely end up looking bad, like it does in this conversion. The morphing of that belt would most likely have to be done by hand; the rings get deformed otherwise.

 

18 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

Thanks for the conversion! I would be glad to have it.

 

PM.

[Gudulba]

Unfortunately still strugging with the doggie belt conversion. I tried to convert it from your 3BAv2 to CBBE 3BA like I did successfully with the catsuit thanks to your instructions. But no matter what I try, I still get neck seam and slightly fatter body when equipping the doggie belt.

 

This is how it looks in the BodySlide preview and then in Outfit Studio after the conversion. It looks fine in OS to me, but then I still get the neck seam in the game. Is there something I am missing here?

Spoiler

 

[traison]

18 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

I still get neck seam and slightly fatter body when equipping the doggie belt.

...

Is there something I am missing here?

 

Only 2 things that explainthat:

1. Different BS preset.
2. Different body mesh.

[Gudulba]

I may have found the cause regarding the washed out colors outdoors. The Studio.dds is a 152 Bytes small file. It's a dynamic cube map I think? I had issues with outfits, metal parts on clutter, bottles etc. a while back when I installed a dynamic cubemap mod. These items would overly reflect the current sky color with ENB on. I therefore gave up on that dynamic cubemap mod.

 

Now I seem to have the same issue here. I have replaced the Studio.dds with the corresponding non-dynamic .dds from the Devious Devices catsuit. And voilà, the colors are not washed out anymore outdoors. The catsuit is not that shiny as indoors, but at least not washed out. 

Edited August 13, 2025 by Gudulba

[Gudulba]

On 8/8/2025 at 11:36 AM, traison said:

 

Only 2 things that explainthat:

1. Different BS preset.
2. Different body mesh.

The neck gap vanishes when I do setnpcweight 100 on PC or NPC. Could that give an additional hint?

[traison]

1 hour ago, Gudulba said:

It's a dynamic cube map I think?

 

Texture indexes. List is 0-indexed, meaning the first texture is number 0:

;  Index	Texture
;  0		Diffuse
;  1		Normal
;  2		Environment mask / Subsurface tint
;  3		Glow / detail
;  4		Height
;  5		Environment
;  6		Multilayer
;  7		Backlight mask / specular
;  8		???

 

In your case, studio.dds is texture 5 (index 4) i.e. height map, unless it has been repurposed or serves a dual-purpose. I don't recall meshes typically use heightmaps, we use normalmaps for that (i.e. index 1), but then again this is not something I've been paying particular attention to. Or anotehr way of putting that is, I'd remove it entirely.

 

Edit again: PGPatcher puts its cubemap in index 4. I'll update my documentation here, as it seems there's a dual-purpose at the very least. So instead of removing it like I previously suggested, consider using the 1px dynamic cubemap texture from CS/ENB, if you're using those mods as well.

 

1 hour ago, Gudulba said:

The neck gap vanishes when I do setnpcweight 100 on PC or NPC. Could that give an additional hint?

 

On NPCs that's "normal" (Edit: "normal" as in: can happen). I believe it occurs when the facegen mesh is generated for a different weight than the NPC_ record is currently set to. It's basically the same root cause that causes the black face bug on NPCs. I'm not sure I've ever seen this on the player character, outside of when you're messing with the sexchange console command or doing something else you're probably not supposed to do.

Edited August 13, 2025 by traison