100 Bachelors and Bachelorettes Stricken by the Greyface Plague

Ivuh · June 22, 2017

Firstly, I'd like to say that I'm posting this in forums as an absolute last ditch attempt to solve this problem. I've always been one to solve problems by myself through careful reading and trial and error, but alas it seems I met my match.

Short Version

So basically I got a really nasty case of the greyface bug. It only appears some time after creating a new character (1-2h of play) and once it appears, if I close my game and restart it, it will only reappear when I exit an area (which is inevitable).

I use MO to manage my files, used LOOT to sort mods (then placing Bijin, Ordinary Women, Males of Skyrim and Prettier Bandits a bit lower on the load order), used XEdit to clear any conflicts (like between Bijin and TOW and with Immersive College of Winterhold), used NPCProc to make sure the facegen was duly exported and finally made a bashed patch.

I tried merging mods, but I screwed up and had to do a clean install.

I've also tried the CK's ctrl+f4 trick, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work because I see the greyface bug inside the CK as well.

I never had this problem using NMM and having a "dirty" Data folder. It crashed a LOT, but no greyface.

My Active Mod Files are:

00  Skyrim.esm
01  Update.esm
02  Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp  [Version 2.1.3b]
03  Dawnguard.esm
04  Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp  [Version 2.1.3b]
05  HearthFires.esm
06  Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp  [Version 2.1.3b]
07  Dragonborn.esm
08  Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp  [Version 2.1.3b]
09  Lanterns Of Skyrim - All In One - Main.esm
0A  Campfire.esm
0B  SexLab.esm  [Version 1.62]
0C  Devious Devices - Assets.esm  [Version 2.8.3]
0D  SexLabAroused.esm  [Version 2.8]
0E  ZaZAnimationPack.esm
0F  Devious Devices - Integration.esm
10  ClimatesOfTamriel.esm
11  RaceCompatibility.esm  [Version 1.60a]
12  hdtHighHeel.esm
13  CreatureFramework.esm  [Version 1.0.0]
14  Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm
15  ApachiiHair.esm
16  ApachiiHairFemales.esm
17  Apachii_DivineEleganceStore.esm
18  TERAArmors.esm
19  AOM.esm
1A  Devious Devices - Expansion.esm
1B  paradise_halls.esm
1C  IcePenguinWorldMap.esp
1D  Tamriel Reloaded HD.esp
1E  CollegeOfWinterholdImmersive.esp
1F  Cassandra Frost Witch.esp
20  ClimatesOfTamriel-Interiors-Warm.esp
21  DSHg - DragonPriest Masks.esp
22  Relationship Dialogue Overhaul.esp
23  paradise_halls_SLExtension.esp
24  Improved Artifacts - Complete Collection.esp
25  DSHg - Helmets.esp
26  DSHg - UpdateDB.esp
27  DSHg - UpdateDG.esp
28  dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
29  dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp
2A  CharacterMakingExtender.esp
2B  USKP Patcher for RaceCompatibility.esp
2C  Eyes of Aber.esp
2D  FNIS.esp
2E  Footprints.esp
2F  FreckleMania.esp
30  SexLabNudeCreatures.esp
31  SexLabNudeCreaturesDB.esp
32  SexLabNudeCreaturesDG.esp
33  Holidays.esp
34  HentaiCreatures.esp
35  KS Hairdos - HDT.esp
36  Lieyes_v1.0.esp
37  Maevan2EyeBrows.esp
38  MoreNastyCritters.esp
39  AzarHairPonyTail 03 - Havok.esp
3A  AK_RM_PubicStyles_All_In_One.esp
3B  Purewaters.esp
3C  RaceMenu.esp
3D  RaceMenuPlugin.esp
3E  RUSTIC SOULGEMS - Sorted.esp
3F  SGEyebrows.esp
40  Schlongs of Skyrim.esp
41  SOS - Smurf Average Addon.esp
42  SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp
43  Moss Rocks - Legendary.esp
44  TheEyesOfBeauty.esp  [Version 9]
45  Tiwa44_Minidresses.esp
46  Tiwa44_Minidresses_Dragonborn.esp
47  KS Hairdo's.esp
48  12FemaleBrows.esp
49  SkyUI.esp
4A  DesyncBirdsOfPrey.esp
4B  Chesko_WearableLantern.esp
4C  zzArmormashups.esp
4D  Merta Assassin Armor.esp
4E  Arcane Violet S.esp
4F  Strap.esp
50  Brawl Bugs CE.esp
51  Sotteta Necromancer Outfit.esp
52  Tembtra Thief Armor.esp
53  Differently Ebony.esp
54  Ophelia.esp
55  AOM.esp
56  DSHg - Hoods.esp
57  Cloaks.esp
58  SMIM-Merged-All.esp
59  SFO - Dragonborn.esp
5A  SexLab_Solutions.esp
5B  Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim.esp
5C  xazPrisonOverhaul.esp
5D  BecomeKingofSkyrim.esp
5E  sanguinesDebauchery.esp
5F  EnhancedCharacterEdit.esp
60  SolitudeExterior.esp
61  SofiaFollower.esp
62  SexLab-AmorousAdventures.esp
63  Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
64  SexLab_Dialogues.esp
65  Apachii_DivineEleganceStore_Patch.esp
66  CMO - Complete Male Overhaul.esp
67  SOS - Shop.esp
68  TheAmazingWorldOfBikiniArmor.esp
69  FalmerBikini.esp
6A  MistySkye.esp
6B  WhiterunExterior.esp
6C  summersetisles.esp
6D  DragonBoneBikini.esp
6E  Dwarvenbikini.esp
6F  Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp
70  HighHrothgarWindowGlow.esp
71  Ursine Armor Pack.esp
72  BladesBikini.esp
73  Merta Black Rose Armor.esp
74  sextoys-calyps-2.esp
75  Emfy Cleric Robes.esp
76  Gwelda Armor Pack.esp
77  TheCoenaculiUNP.esp
78  TW3_femaleArmors_zzjay.esp
79  Witch Of The Wild.esp
7A  Bag of Holding.esp
7B  K2 Alice in Wunderland Outfits.esp
7C  Goddess.esp
7D  Dragon Priestess.esp
7E  V4 Slave.esp
7F  V4 Pearls.esp
80  LostGrimoire.esp
81  SlaveTats.esp
82  Toccata.esp
83  Beachwear Collection 2017.esp
84  NusbieVoices.esp
85  LPBards.esp
86  AcquisitiveSoulGemMultithreaded.esp
87  DeadlySpellImpacts.esp
88  ImmersiveSpells.esp
89  SmartCast_1_0.esp  [Version 1.0]
8A  Devious Deviants.esp
8B  DeviouslyHelpless.esp
8C  SLAL_K4Anims.esp
8D  PuppetMaster.esp
8E  SexLab Submit.esp
8F  SexLabDefeat.esp
90  SLALAnimObj.esp
91  SLAL_AnimationsByLeito.esp
92  KomAnimObjects.esp
93  SLAnimLoader.esp
94  SexLab TDF Aggressive Prostitution.esp
95  NibblesAnimObjects.esp
96  paradise_halls_farengars_study.esp
97  Apropos.esp
98  SexLab_Solutions_PO_Patch.esp
99  Prettier Bandits.esp
9A  The Ordinary Women.esp
9B  Adrianne.esp
9C  Karliah.esp
9D  Rikke.esp
9E  Sapphire.esp
9F  Vex.esp
A0  Camilla.esp
A1  Morwen.esp
A2  Muiri.esp
A3  Sylgja.esp
A4  Taarie.esp
A5  Temba.esp
A6  Ysolda.esp
A7  Males of Skyrim.esp
A8  Bijin Warmaidens.esp
A9  Serana.esp
AA  Toccata as Elisif.esp
AB  STEP Combined PluginHF.esp  [Version 2.2.9.1]
AC  Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp  [Version 3.1.6a]
AD  Bashed Patch, 0.esp
AE  DynDOLOD.esp
AF  NoButchWalk.esp

I've basically tried every trick in the book to no avail. Can some enlightened soul please, pretty please help me find what I'm doing wrong? I'm pretty sure it's the CK part, but how do I get it to display NPC's correctly? Or is it something else I missed?

P.S.: This is what my NPCs in CK look like.

P.P.S.: My PC specs: Processor Intel® Core i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB Ram, NVidia GeForce GTX 960M

RW311 · June 22, 2017

The picture is not greyface, that's the tintmasks being the wrong resolution for ck.

The easy way to fix this if you are going to rebuild the facegen data is to go here textures/actors/character/character assets/tintmaks.

Rename tintmasks folder to something else, then load ck and use ctrl f4 to generate new facegen of your npc close ck then rename tintmasks folder back to what it was and you will have fixed textures in the game. If you are getting grey faces even after this you have a mod conflict or a problem with how skyrim is accessing the facegen files.

Ivuh · June 22, 2017

Thank you for your reply.

I'm gonna try it out and report the results.

In the meanwhile, I took a pic of what ails my poor NPCs (I took a pic when I loaded a save, exited area and came back to see them with that mess).

RW311 · June 22, 2017

That's normally a sign of vram limits. You may be able to use texture optimizer and reduce some mods textures sizes to free some memory space.

Ivuh · June 22, 2017

So, theoretically, if I were to disable say, half of the RUSTIC texture packs I might be able to avoid the greyfacebug, or is it something that just applies to NPCs?

Actually, I initially installed 8k textures. After reading a bit about textures, I downgraded to 2k and didn't notice much performance improvement over the 8k ones. I kept the 2k textures though.

I'm still fiddling with the CK, I still haven't been able to "see" my NPCs as they should be despite having renamed the facetint folders in:

D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Mod Organizer\mods\Bijin Wives\textures\actors\character\FaceGenData

It might be that I'm simply inept with CK, but I've always found it so... cumbersome.

RW311 · June 22, 2017

So, theoretically, if I were to disable say, half of the RUSTIC texture packs I might be able to avoid the greyfacebug, or is it something that just applies to NPCs?

Actually, I initially installed 8k textures. After reading a bit about textures, I downgraded to 2k and didn't notice much performance improvement over the 8k ones. I kept the 2k textures though.

I'm still fiddling with the CK, I still haven't been able to "see" my NPCs as they should be despite having renamed the facetint folders in:

D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Mod Organizer\mods\Bijin Wives\textures\actors\character\FaceGenData

It might be that I'm simply inept with CK, but I've always found it so... cumbersome.

That's not the folder to rename, it's the default tintmasks folder in the path I pointed out that are loaded into ck. But there is no need to do this anymore because rebuilding facegen data will not make any difference in this case.

Texture optimizer will help even if you already have 2k textures, you can reduce to lower resolution if you need to with it but that's not always what you need to do, more important is to optimize the textures for the game than just reduce the size.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12801/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D12801&pUp=1

yatol · June 23, 2017

That's normally a sign of vram limits. You may be able to use texture optimizer and reduce some mods textures sizes to free some memory space.

if you don't ram ctd, that's what you get when out of ram

it's the body msn that wasn't load, so it's not purple, for the head it's either the s or sk that is missing, some clouds textures, the wood _n, and whatever else is missing

when there's a headpart conflict between npc record and head nif, skyrim dont load the head nif but generate one

femalehead.nif don't have any tintmask, so neck seam, what they call grey face bug

"I took a pic when I loaded a save, exited area and came back to see them with that mess"

if the game can load the head nif then there's no headpart conflict

if it can no longer load it after the npc was edited (npc is no longer in the same position he was when save was load, that's update in the save when you leave the cell), then it's something your load order did to that npc that is the problem

coc qasmoke

player.placeatme mjoll id

coc whiterunexterior01

coc qasmoke

no problem? then the problem is your save (it's the last esp, it always win the load order)

problem? then it's just a matter of removing esp until problem disappear to find where it is

Ivuh · June 23, 2017

That's not the folder to rename, it's the default tintmasks folder in the path I pointed out that are loaded into ck. But there is no need to do this anymore because rebuilding facegen data will not make any difference in this case.

Texture optimizer will help even if you already have 2k textures, you can reduce to lower resolution if you need to with it but that's not always what you need to do, more important is to optimize the textures for the game than just reduce the size.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12801/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D12801&pUp=1

Oh, silly me...

Okay, so it's probably a texture loading issue then. I'm running the Texture Optimizer atm, it seems it will take quite a while to finish it's job... I'll post an update once it is complete.

Thank you for your patience! :angel:

Ivuh · June 23, 2017

when there's a headpart conflict between npc record and head nif, skyrim dont load the head nif but generate one

femalehead.nif don't have any tintmask, so neck seam, what they call grey face bug

"I took a pic when I loaded a save, exited area and came back to see them with that mess"

if the game can load the head nif then there's no headpart conflict

if it can no longer load it after the npc was edited (npc is no longer in the same position he was when save was load, that's update in the save when you leave the cell), then it's something your load order did to that npc that is the problem

coc qasmoke

player.placeatme mjoll id

coc whiterunexterior01

coc qasmoke

no problem? then the problem is your save (it's the last esp, it always win the load order)

problem? then it's just a matter of removing esp until problem disappear to find where it is

Thank you for your input, this has to be the most comprehensive troubleshooting I've seen for this topic!

So it's probably not a ram issue as I haven't CTD'd midgame since I've started using MO. The game does CTD if I exit Skyrim and try to reload it without rebooting my PC though, I don't know if this is normal, but it has always happened to me (fortunately, rebooting takes only 3-4 sec, so it's quite tolerable).

That being said, the problem is definitely what you posted in the pic I quoted above. I'll have to test your suggestion a bit later as I am currently running the Texture Optimizer. Removing mods one by one is going to be a chore, but at least it'll be more useful than looking for conflicts with XEdit; so far every edit I made didn't solve anything.

Ivuh · June 23, 2017

coc qasmoke

player.placeatme mjoll id

coc whiterunexterior01

coc qasmoke

no problem? then the problem is your save (it's the last esp, it always win the load order)

problem? then it's just a matter of removing esp until problem disappear to find where it is

Thank you for your input, this has to be the most comprehensive troubleshooting I've seen for this topic!

So it's probably not a ram issue as I haven't CTD'd midgame since I've started using MO. The game does CTD if I exit Skyrim and try to reload it without rebooting my PC though, I don't know if this is normal, but it has always happened to me (fortunately, rebooting takes only 3-4 sec, so it's quite tolerable).

That being said, the problem is definitely what you posted in the pic I quoted above. I'll have to test your suggestion a bit later as I am currently running the Texture Optimizer. Removing mods one by one is going to be a chore, but at least it'll be more useful than looking for conflicts with XEdit; so far every edit I made didn't solve anything.

Ok, so I finished running Texture Optimizer.

Then I reloaded the save from where I took the pics, teleported to qasmoke and placed Mjoll in this area. Upon being placed here, Mjoll had purple hair and greyface, so I assumed it was the 2nd option (" it's just a matter of removing esp until problem disappear to find where it is"). For thoroughness' sake, I went to whiterun and back and Mjoll was still exhibiting the same problem.

So I guess I'll just have to check which esp is causing this, wish me luck *grumbles*

Ivuh · June 23, 2017

It seems that SlaveTats wasn't playing nice with my custom NPC mods (Bijin, Ordinary Women, Males of Skyrim and Prettier Bandits).

I have since removed SlaveTats from my load order and everything seems to be fine for the time being. I hope this information helps anyone facing the same problem I had.

Special thanks to Rw311 and Yatol for having the patience to help me!

UPDATE: SlaveTats can work with the NPC replacer mods if its load order is below them. Other sources seem to confirm this.

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