Play as a human... elf?

[Discord12]

So I desperatly want to play an Elf (It's a RP - Skyrim thing) but nevercould bear the ugly looks of them. Even with the "Etheral Elven Overhaul" installed, and spending hours of trying and reading guides, I cant get a elven character done, that looks even remotely acceptable.

I've been through a lot of options and tried to work out the problems, none worked so far.

 

My last straw:

 

I would like to use the normal human meshes and options for an elven character.

Or the other way around: Play a human, but be recognized by NPCs as an elf.

 

Is there an easy way to do this, without breaking the game or creating a custom race?

Or is there a custom race out there for that?

 

My main goal here is to be hated and associated with thalmor when playing a high elf, be an outcast when playing a dark elf... you get the idea.

[Anatriax]

Do you use Racemenu or Enhanced Character Edit?

[Guest]

I dont know what your problem is with Elven Overhaul because my elves look damn good but with Racemenu you can definitely make an eleven character.

 

Step 1: change ear type to and elven one (there are 2 human ears 5 types of elven ears)

Step 2: take almond shape eyes (or whatever you prefer) and use angle/Tilt of the eye to make them more feline

Step 3: increase Iris size by 15 to 25%

Step 4:....

Step 5: Profit.

[Anatriax]

I dont know what your problem is with Elven Overhaul because my elves look damn good but with Racemenu you can definitely make an eleven character.

 

Step 1: change ear type to and elven one (there are 2 human ears 5 types of elven ears)

Step 2: take almond shape eyes (or whatever you prefer) and use angle/Tilt of the eye to make them more feline

Step 3: increase Iris size by 15 to 25%

Step 4:....

Step 5: Profit.

 

And that is how you make one sexy elf <3

[Guest]

This is a dark elf that will play a role in my mod.

Look at how cute she is! She is a dunmer, not a human posing as a an elf.

http://www.anony.ws/image/DUOa

[Anatriax]

What UI mod are you using to get your health, magicka, and stamina all grouped up together like that?

[Guest]

Its just Frostfall not installed properly haha, I use this copy of skyrim for my testing. So it has a lot of useless crap on it.

 

[Anatriax]

Ah. Oddly, as much as I'm into immersion I haven't tried Frosfall yet. Yeah yeah, I know. 

Back to the primary topic: If you use either Racemenu or ECE, making an acceptable elf should be fairly easy. There are a couple of guides on the net regarding "how to make a cute character", I suggest checking some of those out. They may help you quite a bit.

[Discord12]

Do you use Racemenu or Enhanced Character Edit?

Using Racemenu currently

 

I dont know what your problem is with Elven Overhaul because my elves look damn good but with Racemenu you can definitely make an eleven character.

 

Step 1: change ear type to and elven one (there are 2 human ears 5 types of elven ears)

Step 2: take almond shape eyes (or whatever you prefer) and use angle/Tilt of the eye to make them more feline

Step 3: increase Iris size by 15 to 25%

Step 4:....

Step 5: Profit.

 

My problem is mainly with the shape of the face, especially the degenerate looking underbite chin you cant change, since EEO uses the "Chin forward" slider to modify the thicknes of the lips (as if Racemenu didnt have 5 sliders for that already...) and yeah, pretty sure it's my inability to use the tremendous amount of customization too....

 

This is a dark elf that will play a role in my mod.

Look at how cute she is! She is a dunmer, not a human posing as a an elf.

http://www.anony.ws/image/DUOa

Nope, DEFINITELY not my kind of woman

[Anatriax]

Have you tried using the "Sculpt" feature of Racemenu?

[Discord12]

Have you tried using the "Sculpt" feature of Racemenu?

 

I did, but either I have literally NO idea how it works, or it doesnt work (I always assumed its not working yet and a work in progress..) ..., but now that you mention it, I will give it another try

[Anatriax]

There are some youtube videos on how to use it properly. If nothing else, make the jump to Enhanced Character Edit. I find faces to be much more customizable with ECE. It takes a little more work to get it to look how you want, but there is a lot more fine tuning that is possible.

 

Just a warning: If you install ECE, make sure to remove EEO. They conflict because they both call for different facegen data.

[Discord12]

I fiddle around with it for some time now and yes, the sculpt method would probably work, but is immensly time costly which brings me back to my initial question: How to create the "fake elf" or simply making others react to me as if I were an elf.

[KumamonTheWorshiper]

Pick any elf race.

 

change your pc's head to nord by using the race slider in 'extra' category.

 

Give your pc some elf ears.

 

Fuck Bethesda's elf's eye shapes, use the human ones instead.

 

Done.

[Guest]

 

Do you use Racemenu or Enhanced Character Edit?

Using Racemenu currently

 

I dont know what your problem is with Elven Overhaul because my elves look damn good but with Racemenu you can definitely make an eleven character.

 

Step 1: change ear type to and elven one (there are 2 human ears 5 types of elven ears)

Step 2: take almond shape eyes (or whatever you prefer) and use angle/Tilt of the eye to make them more feline

Step 3: increase Iris size by 15 to 25%

Step 4:....

Step 5: Profit.

 

My problem is mainly with the shape of the face, especially the degenerate looking underbite chin you cant change, since EEO uses the "Chin forward" slider to modify the thicknes of the lips (as if Racemenu didnt have 5 sliders for that already...) and yeah, pretty sure it's my inability to use the tremendous amount of customization too....

 

This is a dark elf that will play a role in my mod.

Look at how cute she is! She is a dunmer, not a human posing as a an elf.

http://www.anony.ws/image/DUOa

Nope, DEFINITELY not my kind of woman

 

 

 

is it cuz she is black?

joking joking!

 

Well, I really dont know whats wrong with her face but maybe its just me?

maybe you can post a picture of what an elf is suppose to look like in your mind?

 

I though elves were just humans with point ears...

 

[zzz72w3r]

Build a face with Nord or other human races.  Export the head nif using Sculpt mode.  Switch to an Elf race, import the face nif.

 

Or just import the face nif from any follower mod into an Elf race character. 

 

I just tested a few times, should get you a human looking elf.

 

 

 

[Coopervane]

Well that depends, do you want to get rid of any trace of the Elven features the game has? In which case, you should follow the advice given about transplanting a Nord face with Elf-ears onto an Elf.

 

Or, do you want to retain some of the Elvish features, but just want to get rid of the ugly? Well that's possible aswell.

 

 

Here's how my char looks, in both Dunmer and Bosmer form:

 

 

 

 

 

 

She's got TES-Elf features that make her look slightly otherworldly and stand out a bit from the humans, the elf-eyes, the slimmer and more heart-shaped face, and of course the ears, but she doesen't have all the ugly that Bethesda added with Skyrim (the massive wrinkles, the sharp lines, the bovine jaw, or the Romulan forhead). If you find her super pretty or not is a matter of taste, but i think most people would agree that this is a lot better looking than the vanilla look the game gives Elves.

 

 

And that's basically all done using standard Racemenu features/sliders on the vanilla Elven face-mesh.

 

 

The only thing that can't be done in Racemenu is getting rid of the wrinkles and Romulan forhead. For that, go to data/textures/actors/charater/ and create 3 new folders (if they do not exist already) called:

 

darkelffemale

highelffemale

woodelffemale

 

And if you want the Orismer females to look prettier aswell, you can also create the folder:

 

femaleorc

 

 

Then go into data/textures/actors/charater/female/ folder and locate the texture called "femalehead_msn.dds", copy that to your desktop, and then drag/copy it into the folders that you just created. And hey presto! Your Elves are now using the same nice texture you have installed for your human characters, and that gets rid of the Demonic-Romulan look.

 

 

The rest is just a matter of playing around with the sliders in Racemenu, and, if you want to go a step better, learning how to use the Sculpt tools.

[Kaz Aanh]

Have you tried using the "Sculpt" feature of Racemenu?

I wouldn't rely on that feature, it will break your facial expressions. Just do a minor tweaks but don't use it to shape the head, use the sliders instead.

I tried it once by myself and every time my character smiled I wanted to poke my eyes.

 

The way I did my human-elf tolkien elf, or half-elf , depending how do you like to call it , was:

• firstly I have created a human looking character , I've picked breton as a base because they have the best pre-editing looks
• then I've added pointy ears ( how obvious )
• changed a little eyes with a angle / tilt sliders, also i made them a little bit bigger
• raised cheekbones, tight-nened cheeks to make face look more like a " V " shape
• made nose smaller
• upped and rounded chin
• use some smooth and clean normals like unp creamy or fair skin _msn's, to achieve the best elven skin results. And mix it with a diffuses of your choice

With these sliders you can make any human race into a tolkien-style-elf.

 

I didn't go with a full / pure elven thing , I just wanted 1/3 of elven features and apply them to my human character. You know kinda a half-breed.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

@Dag

 

thats nice, what are you using?

I dont like using human faces too much because for some reason they look fat (especially the breton ones)

[Anatriax]

I guess a lot of people aren't familiar with traditional descriptions of "human sized" elves. Legolas did not look like Orlando Bloom. He had a long, narrow, bony face with high cheek bones, and slightly sunken cheeks. 

 

Read some of the descriptions of what Elves are supposed to look like from the game Chainmail (the pre-cursor to D&D). 

 

Not that there isn't room for creativity. DEFINITELY not saying that. There are, afterall, half elves! Who range from looking almost human with almost no elven features, to the exact opposite. But in truth, Bethesda was recreating what they felt the "traditional" elf should look like. 

Lets face it: Arena was created by a bunch of guys that probably played D&D in high school / college. Look through some of the older handbooks at the art they used for elves. 

[Discord12]

Dont really want to start an argument about "What an elf looks like." Since they dont exist, it's pretty much up to anyones imagination. Guess what we all can agree to is pointy ear.

 

 

Build a face with Nord or other human races.  Export the head nif using Sculpt mode.  Switch to an Elf race, import the face nif.

 

Or just import the face nif from any follower mod into an Elf race character. 

 

I just tested a few times, should get you a human looking elf.

 

That actually worked great, but created 2 problems:

One being the neck seam, which is now to high and has a part between body / neck you can see through

The other is the forehead being... ridiculously high / big which even swallows parts of the hair. I fixed that problem to some extent by making the face "higher". But the hair still gets swallowed up up bit.

 

 

The only thing that can't be done in Racemenu is getting rid of the wrinkles and Romulan forhead. For that, go to data/textures/actors/charater/ and create 3 new folders (if they do not exist already) called:

 

darkelffemale

highelffemale

woodelffemale

 

And if you want the Orismer females to look prettier aswell, you can also create the folder:

 

femaleorc

 

 

Then go into data/textures/actors/charater/female/ folder and locate the texture called "femalehead_msn.dds", copy that to your desktop, and then drag/copy it into the folders that you just created. And hey presto! Your Elves are now using the same nice texture you have installed for your human characters, and that gets rid of the Demonic-Romulan look.

 

 

The rest is just a matter of playing around with the sliders in Racemenu, and, if you want to go a step better, learning how to use the Sculpt tools.

 

I tried that too, it didnt change anything though on my elf. It did of course change the vanilla elves

 

My current state of my elf:

Using "Better females by bella". But I guess I'll switch back to "Lith Faces" sooner or later for the more natural look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

I just figured out... when using Ethereal Elven Overhaul, the directory for the elven textures is a slighty different one: Skyrim\Data\Textures\actors\character\Ethereal\Highelf

When taking that into consideration, the tip by Coopervane turned out gold!

Also, for some reason, when I did it all over again, the neck problem disappeared, although, the color still differs, but that doesnt bother me to much.

I also decided to go back to LiFE.

 

Only problem that still remains is that darn forehead! any advices on that?

 

 

 

 

[Coopervane]

I tried that too, it didnt change anything though on my elf. It did of course change the vanilla elves

 

Still had EEO installed? It uses a different facemesh and i belive also different texture paths, so that would probably explain why you only saw the changes on NPC's.

 

I woulden't really recommend using EEO unless you like the way EEO looks as-is, because due to the changes in the mesh it's actually harder to change the EEO face than the vanilla one (a lot of sliders don't work or do something different than they should with EEO installed).

So yeah, if you look at EEO and go "Oh hey, that's perfect!", then EEO is for you, and if not, then stick with vanilla as it's a lot easier to make changes to (and thease days, you can do a lot with the recent RM updates).

[Discord12]

 

I tried that too, it didnt change anything though on my elf. It did of course change the vanilla elves

 

Still had EEO installed? It uses a different facemesh and i belive also different texture paths, so that would probably explain why you only saw the changes on NPC's.

 

I woulden't really recommend using EEO unless you like the way EEO looks as-is, because due to the changes in the mesh it's actually harder to change the EEO face than the vanilla one (a lot of sliders don't work or do something different than they should with EEO installed).

So yeah, if you look at EEO and go "Oh hey, that's perfect!", then EEO is for you, and if not, then stick with vanilla as it's a lot easier to make changes to (and thease days, you can do a lot with the recent RM updates).

 

 

hehe yeah I figured that out while you posted this, see the edited post above

I mostly use(d) EEO to enhance the vanilla Elf NPCs (Janessa does look pretty good with EEO)