Face Mismatch Issues

[nunyabidnez]

Hey All,

I suffer from horrible face mismatch issues, and cant figure out how to correct it.  I've tried the export chargen data through creation kit, installed the appropriate apachii patches, and have even gone in and edited specific characters to try to get their face color to match the body, with absolutely no joy.  Weird thing is it's not every NPC that suffers, it is the majority but there are many who match up fine.  Not restricted to just nords or bretons either, it's every race that has a skin tone.  Any suggestions would be immensely appreciated, been pulling my hair out for a week or so now with it.  Only mods I have that are known to cause this are:

 

Apachii SkyHair

SG Female Textures Renewal

 

Again, thank for any advice.

[nunyabidnez]

Edit / Update:  Also did the change bodyweight trick through the console, no luck there either.  So far I think I have tried every trick that is posted on these and other forums, with no resolution.  Killing me.

 

Edit 2:  Now setnpcweight works to correct the mismatch, but only for some NPCs and only while still in the same cell that it was set in, (i.e. if I set a NPC in a tavern, then go outside, if the NPC comes outside their face reverts to the mismatched one).  I was under the impression that the setnpcweight trick was supposed to retain it's setting once you exit the console?

[winny257]

My npcs have darker heads and lighter bodies (noticeable on nords.)

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/39207-my-npcs-have-darker-heads-and-lighter-bodies-noticeable-on-nords/

 

Dark faces

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/14956-dark-faces/

[Sunja44]

The annoying dark head bug strikes again....and again ...and again.

 

It's not Apachii Hair itself, it's usualy the Apachii NPC Hair Overhaul mod which is the reason for this especially when it happens for more than just one NPC. I would suggest to uninstall this mod because it will always result in more or less dark heads on several NPCs. The same I would suggest for the KS Hairdos Female NPC Overhaul mod, same issues.

 

The CTRL + F4 thing that many people always recommend as a solution will only work of course to reverse dark head bugs caused by installing such mods like Hair NPC Overhaul mods...and of course you have to deinstall the mod before your load up the CK and do the CTRL + F4 thing on the default/vanilla char. Then load your game again and the dark head bug should be gone. Save and continue.

 

Concentrate on beautification for a few hand sorted chars you truly love (followers, your spouse, Serena etc.), leave the rest be as it is, or use well created follower/female beautification mods from Nexus (Biing Warmaidens, Skyrim Follower Beautification, Better Bards etc.).

 

 

 

The dark head bug can have several reasons (I still haven't found a true solution or at least an explanation for this bug on the whole internet):

 

My personal - for me the most probable - reason for this issue is the fact that CK itself is "bugged" in that way, that it can't handle all head mesh (facegeom folder under meshes) and facetint combinations, especially when you use:

 

-high res face textures

-high res face tints like in Better Makeup for SKSE (they are actualy for your player char and Race Menu beautification, but the Makeup files are normal .dds files that will be applied to every NPC too)

-additional and custom .tri and face.nif files for hairs (guess what..), eyebrows, eyelashes, facial animation mods.

 

Try the following on a save before you have applied any face changes to your NPCs:

 

Create your beloved NPC in CK, attach the hair style to him/her. Concentrate only on mesh aka face shape changes (ignore face tints) and on applying a hair style, brows, eye colors etc (you need to have the mods for this installed - or you use vanilla brows etc - and loaded as a master to your NPC.esp file, at best keep it small in the beginning and just try to apply an Apachii hairstyle by loading the Apachii.esm as an additional master).

 

If you are finshed, the NPC should look properly colored in the CK prerender window. Export the facegeom and the facetint by CTRL + F4. Save the .esp, leave the CK. DELETE the face tint file and load your game and see what happens. 

 

In the best case your NPC shows up with the hairstyle, the changed face mesh (less jaw, smaller nose etc.), brows and eyelashes, your favorite eye color etc., but WITHOUT any face tint changes. For the facetint Skyrim will load the default loose textures of your female face texture pack (SG Female lips etc.). So you are somewhat restricted in possibilities to change your char, but not that much and at least it does not result in a dark head bug.  

 

If the above worked, try another step to maybe even change the face tint almost to your wishes:

 

Load your beloved NPC in its vanilla state again in the CK (aka do not load your NPC.esp, just the master files where the NPC belongs, Skyrim for a Skyrim NPC, Dawnguard for a DG NPC etc.) WITHOUT any modification mods like additional hairs, brows etc., just the default NPC. ONLY change the face tint (lip color, eye shadows etc.) to your wishes and export it by CTRL + F4 to your Skyrim Data facetint folder (DO NOT FORGET to back up your previously created facegeom in the meshes folder for this NPC, you are able to identify the facegeom.tri file, because it's named by using the ID of this char). Exit CK without saving anything to .esp, just close it.

 

Replace the freshly generated default facegeom by your backed up custom facegeom. Add the just created facetint.dds file to your skyim installation in the according folder (textures.../facetints/Skyrim or Dawnguard or else).

 

Activate your custom NPC.esp, load your saved game again and look how it works.

 

For the second step I actually used the pretty old NPC Editor mod (just for creating a facetint file for a default/vanilla headmesh, because creating such a facetint.dds file is doable much faster as running the long CK load procedure again).

 

The only disadvantage maybe now that your face tint won't fit to 100% your custom head mesh, but you won't really realize that.

 

Things get even more complicated when you bring vampires into the game. Vampire have special .dds files and special head morphs that increase dark head bug chances even more.

 

For those stuff you might try the following:

 

Replace all Femaleheadvampire.dds files by your normal femalehead.dds files (aka rename your normal femalehead.dds files to the according femaleheadvampire.dds files, backup your vampire.dds files of course). Your vampires will look like normal race NPCs, but at least the dark/grey head color is gone and it will be easier to modify them.

 

 

Let me hear how it works.

 

[winny257]

around NPCs other hair give without face error, there is a mod

The Hairstyler by Lycanthrops and GuruSR

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48470/?