Skin textures, CBBE, and neck seams.

[ElderJunkie]

I have a question in which I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of direction.

 

I am currently running CBBE with Bella's Better Females for faces. I had an issue with the neck seam but was able to revolve it using the blender provided in the Skyrim/tools folder. While my female textures look good I'm really wanting to switch over to using the Real Girls texture for CBBE. However, I just know in my gut that as soon as I install it I will have neck seam again.

 

I'm an average modder at best and I hate when I break something and can't revert to the way it was before. This is my fear with doing this and here's why.

 

If there is a neck seam should I run the texture blender again (I'm not sure what mod actually installed this but I think it was CBBE)? If that doesn't fix the issue (with the Real Girls texture) then I'm concerned that simply uninstalling Real Girls might result in some way, shape, or form an issue with my original look.

 

I hope this makes sense as it is quite difficult for me to explain exactly what I'm concerned about.

 

Essentially, if I'm running CBBE with Bella's Better Females (for faces) and I've already ran the texture blend to fix the neck seam, can I then install the Real Girls texture without getting a neck seam issue? And if there is a neck seam issue with the texture blender fix it?

[parasite]

Im basically running real girls with better faces. It takes some fiddling but you can get the major neck seams to disappear. There will always bee a slight contrast between body and nect though due to the extensive detail in the body that better faces lacks. If you dont like how it looks or cant get the seams fixed you can always go back to your old textures. I have switched many many times. 

[ElderJunkie]

Im basically running real girls with better faces. It takes some fiddling but you can get the major neck seams to disappear. There will always bee a slight contrast between body and nect though due to the extensive detail in the body that better faces lacks. If you dont like how it looks or cant get the seams fixed you can always go back to your old textures. I have switched many many times. 

 

How do you go about "fiddling," with the textures?

 

I installed the Real Girls texture and not surprisingly, I had a neck seam. I ran the texture blend in the CBBE tools options (inside the data folder of Skyrim) but it didn't fix it. I'd really like some kind of more realistic skin texture for females as the original CBBE textures look too much like Barbie dolls. However, I cannot stand looking at ugly neck seams.

 

I'm also running Bijin Wives and I'm slightly concerned that something will get overwritten an screwed up there as well.

 

Like I said, I'm an average modder at best, I know how to install/uninstall mods, run executables, etc. but in regards to going into the Creation Kit or anything along those lines, I'm out of my league.

[Swiftstep]

That's not a modders work to resolve your problem. It's simple file management, and doesn't take more than copy and paste to fix.

 

The head seam origins from faulty normal maps on your end. Real Girls comes without mapping files, and Better Females is nothing but them. If the head doesn't fit to the body, than either of those files are wrong. Are you sure to use CBBE normal maps? If I remember correctly, Women of Skyrim uses Bellas work as well, so you might want to get that mod.

 

Guessing you are using NMM, so install WoS (women of Skyrim), Better females (to eliminate the seam), and finally Real girls (to overwrite the WoS body texture files). Please keep in mind that the body you see ingame isn't one big file, but several layers of it. The normal maps have their own kind of naming, so does the skin, the specular maps (sweat), the reflection e.g. Understanding how those files add together to create the look you desire isn't "modding".

[Sunja44]

Just a suggestion...don't use Bellas face textures. Not that I rate those face textures ugly and exaggerated as hell (but ok it's a matter of taste), if you don't use body and face textures out of one hand you will get the neck seam issue with a very high chance. It may get even worse if you use ENB and subsurface scattering, which is an effect you do not want to miss if you like serious PC/NPC appearance modding.

 

Texture Blender is an option but no miracle tool. It may soften seams and transitions but in most cases you will still notice a color or a brightness difference between head and body textures.

 

Just use CBBE body, but maybe Fair Skin Complexion textures (there is a CBBE option fot that) from Nexus.

[Swiftstep]

I'm sorry, are we talking about these normal maps? They are amongst the most popular mods on the nexus - only true alternative would be adorable faces, that creates something else entirely. Besides that, and if all this file tinkering is "too much" for you, I'd go for Pure oder Fair skin - or mature skin. Why? Because those are "complete" mods (just like WoS btw), with perfectly fitting normal maps.

[parasite]

I noticed one of the issues was surprisingly caused by appachi hairs. I have no idea how it caused problems but it made character faces way lighter than bodies.