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Power Armor Undersuit Custom Race Clipping


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I enjoy wearing power armor, but I also enjoy being able to use custom races like those from the CaN mod. Whenever I used the two together, there is some awful clipping that happens around the neck of my character because they've replaced the 'default' undersuit - which uses the Road Leathers mesh - with that of the BoS uniform jumpsuit. The clipping occurs because the BoS jumpsuit has a much higher collar than that of the Road Leathers. Is there a way to manually change which 'undersuit' mesh my PA frame uses to eliminate this clipping?

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This depends on what the actor is wearing, and how the outfit was set up.  It can be overridden on any outfit with a simple keyword update.  It is not something that is universally added by all mod authors however.  The default PA undersuit outfit added to any outfit that does not have one set already is the road leathers.  In testing, when entering PA naked or in an outfit that did not contain a PA keyword, both tests resulted in the road leather undersuit being equipped.

 

To change this for an outfit, load the plugin in either CK or FO4Edit, and update the keywords to either change to the default PA outfit of your preference, or add one if it is missing.  There are several to choose from:

 

image.thumb.png.509796192fb45aba9c6494abe890eee6.png

 

 

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Alternatively, you could change the PA meshes themselves - to include a different outfit.  They are located in ..\Data\Meshes\Actors\PowerArmor\CharacterAssets\

 

The one below is simpley: frame.nif and has a mesh included called basesuit_reduced (highlighted)

 

image.thumb.png.314fe377dcca39c3f3903ee1c348c093.png

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13 hours ago, AWP3RATOR said:

This depends on what the actor is wearing, and how the outfit was set up.  It can be overridden on any outfit with a simple keyword update.  It is not something that is universally added by all mod authors however.  The default PA undersuit outfit added to any outfit that does not have one set already is the road leathers.  In testing, when entering PA naked or in an outfit that did not contain a PA keyword, both tests resulted in the road leather undersuit being equipped.

 

To change this for an outfit, load the plugin in either CK or FO4Edit, and update the keywords to either change to the default PA outfit of your preference, or add one if it is missing.  There are several to choose from:

 

image.thumb.png.509796192fb45aba9c6494abe890eee6.png

 

 

Thanks kindly! I'll try this right away.

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I'm not sure I'm doing this right. When I edit the plugins in Fo4edit, the changes don't appear in the game itself, despite the keyword in every piece of affected armor/clothes in my Merged Patch pointing towards the Greaser Jacket. When I try to edit the Greaser Jacket in the CK, it already has the usePowerArmorFrameAtomCat Keyword in the Keyword frame. A step-by-step may be in order if anyone is willing. I don't know enough about Fo4edit or CK to go tearing through files on my own.

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Something else in your load order must be causing the issue.  The CaN plugins both the esm and player esp files do not alter any clothing records.  That's sort of a red herring here - but what CaN is doing is scaling them a bit differently, so while they do look good on a Human, they do not look as good on a scaled body mesh one of the CaN races.

 

I  tried it with the Pony race plugin and produced the same wider neck clipping that you experienced with the BoS suit.  However, I was able to resolve the issue in my patch by overriding the armor record's PA suit keyword that of my choosing, successfully.  I tried a Vault 114 suit and Vault 81 suit in a quick test - both worked when one was set to Raider (road leathers) and one was set to Atom Cats (greaser jacket).  Also, with the Player Pony plugin, entering the PA naked will equip the Road Leathers outfit.

 

I generally don't use a traditional Skyrim style merged patch with FO4.  When I do any merging, it's with Merged Plugins which (by default) operate on a normal load order principal - so the last one to load wins in the merged patch resolution of conflicts.

 

 

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I'm not sure what it could be since there's only five plugins affecting that particular keyword. Here's a screenshot to show exactly what I'm seeing in the Fo4Edit menu:

 

I left a bug report with the Ad Victoriam creator - the brotherhood of steel overhaul.esp you can see second from the right in the pane - and they thought  "It's probably whatever morph you use for CBBE. The undersuit for power armors isn't covered by custom races or CBBE." I'm fairly certain this is the plugin causing problems, however, as when I remove it from my load order the game goes back to using the Atom Cats/Greaser Jacket instead.

 

I changed all of the records for each plugin aside from Fallout4.esm to usePowerArmorFrameAtomCats and still no changes in the game.

 

 

6042cb947027e77ae27c5776e40a1008.png

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In the screenshot, these are all using the BoS powerarmor frame variation.  That particular record is the the Knight variant of the BoS suit. There are others as well, ensure you have affected the correct suit intended, note the form ID then in game do 'player.equipitem notedformid 1'  and test it.

 

If you tested in the current state of the screenshot, these are not the Atom Cat keywords.

 

image.thumb.png.a9190229a2147d609b8d16ce57ff34a0.png

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Right, I changed them back when they didn't work the first time because I didn't want to break anything if changing them was no good. Sorry for that confusion!

 

Changed all of the records across both versions of the uniform with the same result: the PA frame continues to use the BoS jumpsuit in lieu of the Atom Cats/Greaser Jacket.

 

I also tested every other armor on this list, as well as both variants of the Greaser Jacket, and THEY all caused the BoS Jumpsuit to be equipped. Interestingly, Vault Suits cause the PA frame to use Vault Suits properly as the 'undersuit' of the power armor when worn.

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Hmm interesting result on the testing.  Have you by changed the NIF's to see if they were edited?

 

They should be in the path ..\Data\Meshes\Actors\PowerArmor\Character Assets\  and are called:

 

Frame.nif (vault suit)

Frame_BOS.nif (BoS 1)

PAFrame_AtmoCat.nif (Greaser)

PAFrame_Raider.nif (Road Leahter)

PAFrame_Scribe.nif (Bos 2 - Proctor Ingram) 

PAFrame_Wastelander.nif

 

Cannot rule out that some mod hasn't replaced the meshes, until you check.

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They must have been, since none of those .nifs are in that folder at all, just assets from a jetpack mod I have installed. I have no idea what could have wiped them completely out though, or how to restore them. They must be in the Data folder somewhere though, otherwise the PA frames would be replaced by giant !!!! marks in red, wouldn't they?

 

Edit: I try searching for these files in the Windows search function, and none of them appear. Not even the Frame_BOS.nif or Frame.nif, which are apparently both functioning just fine in the game.

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I did notice in the CK that the frames pointing towards the Brotherhood jumpsuit were all missing female variants in their .nifs. Maybe the missing files had something to do with them defaulting to the Brotherhood version?

 

Edit: I think I figured it out. When I went back into Fo4Edit I realized that there were some conflicting entries in the Armor Addons tab! Lo and behold, the ones with conflicts were all of the frame variants that were inexplicably choosing the BoS jumpsuit as their target. All I had to do was use an extractor to pull the correct .nif files from the meshes.bsa, place them in the correct data folder, then change their Armor Addons entries to reflect the correct meshes. Now I have to go back and place all of the BoS uniform entries back to their correct states, though, but that should be no big deal.

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3 hours ago, colonolpoopscoop said:

They must have been, since none of those .nifs are in that folder at all, just assets from a jetpack mod I have installed. I have no idea what could have wiped them completely out though, or how to restore them. They must be in the Data folder somewhere though, otherwise the PA frames would be replaced by giant !!!! marks in red, wouldn't they?

 

Edit: I try searching for these files in the Windows search function, and none of them appear. Not even the Frame_BOS.nif or Frame.nif, which are apparently both functioning just fine in the game.

They are packed in BA2 archives.  This is somewhat good news then - it means that in your game, those meshes were not replaced by anything.  Which means it's either a mod doing it (which we're starting to rule out based on your load order investigation in NifSkope) OR it's a script doing it.  Something along the lines of an override on entering powerarmor, equipping a specific frame, instead of the "correct" frame based on what the actor is wearing.

 

Finding a script will be a challenging thing indeed.  Not all authors include the source files (in readable .psc format) like they should.  You could also try the process of elimination method to zero in on the offending mod:

 

Disable half your mods and test.  If it happens in the test, the mod is in that half. If it does not, try the other half.  Once you can recreate the issue with either half of the mods active - half them again, and so on until you get down to a workable number (2-10 mods or so) - where you can go and begin inspecting the files included with it.

 

If you are using Mod Organizer, this is as easy as creating a copy of the current profile - then ticking/unticking boxes.  If you are using Nexus Mod Manager (gasp) then it's going to be a bit more laborious.

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1 hour ago, colonolpoopscoop said:

That might be helpful, if only to see how they got it done. The idea of having my naughty bits grinding against a cold metal frame makes me scream in a not-sexy way though, so I probably won't use it myself.

 

1 hour ago, Halstrom said:

Be great if someone did the GITS or Kerrigan suit and allowed it to use the alternative texture mods, DVA suit might be nice too.

 

This is apparently "as easy" (suspicious quotes intended) as altering one of the default frame.nif in an editor like 3dsMax - where it can be easily separated from the outfit under it, then replacing that outfit with something else.  The mesh layer is called basesuit_reduced, so without even inspecting it - I'm assuming it's a smaller sized mesh.

 

For the comment/question about missing female variants - this is normal. When an actor enters PA, they become genderless.  Their race actually changes to the PowerArmor race temporarily, then swaps back to what it was prior to entering the PA.

 

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I was curious.... this is the mesh that is inside Frame.nif.  Your standard vault suit, with pieces cut out, presumably to reduce clipping and increase performance.

 

With some proper export and import to the modeling tools - it shouldn't be challenging.  The "reduced" is referring to a lower poly count and cut mesh.  The sizes of the mesh are identical though.

 

PA, PA Suit, and game world vault suit on right.

 

image.thumb.png.8074cb18e8d0afa8f28ba167f7c67b28.png

 

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7 hours ago, AWP3RATOR said:

 

 

This is apparently "as easy" (suspicious quotes intended) as altering one of the default frame.nif in an editor like 3dsMax - where it can be easily separated from the outfit under it, then replacing that outfit with something else.  The mesh layer is called basesuit_reduced, so without even inspecting it - I'm assuming it's a smaller sized mesh.

 

For the comment/question about missing female variants - this is normal. When an actor enters PA, they become genderless.  Their race actually changes to the PowerArmor race temporarily, then swaps back to what it was prior to entering the PA.

 

"Easy as" for some of us to "just edit in 3DsMax" as it is for mesh savvy people to code FORTRAN in Japanese :smile: 
 

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@Halstrom - as straightforward as, may have been a better turn of phrase there.  The outfit is a static part of the PA frame.  But yes, I get your meaning.  :smile:

 

That being said, I'd like to try replacing the outfit - would you prefer the GITS suit or Kerrigan body suit?  I can see about adding the alternative textures, but since the PA fame is actually furniture, that may require a different approach than straight outfits and workbench color swapping.

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10 hours ago, AWP3RATOR said:

@Halstrom - as straightforward as, may have been a better turn of phrase there.  The outfit is a static part of the PA frame.  But yes, I get your meaning.  :smile:

 

That being said, I'd like to try replacing the outfit - would you prefer the GITS suit or Kerrigan body suit?  I can see about adding the alternative textures, but since the PA fame is actually furniture, that may require a different approach than straight outfits and workbench color swapping.

Ah I was hoping that any normal GITS or Kerrigan textures would apply to it easily, but see that's my limited knowledge of mesh & textures :smile: 
I like the Kerrigan, it looks pretty Plugsuit like :smile:

 

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I suspect if body slide is used on the power armor to tighten and feminise it, the outside plating would still be normal sized, can it be Bodyslided as well to match and so make a smaller version of the power armor for females? I know crap about bodyslide and don't have the time to learn as I'm busy on 2 other script projects :smile:

 

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