Face Mods Comparison

[Neovalen]

I've been doing a ton of research for various face textures for my guide Skyrim Revisited (Still a WIP). Figured I'd share some of my results and get feedback.

 

My thoughts are as follows:

XCE has too much "crinkles, creases, etc." and makes everyone look overworked (including those who shouldn't look that way)

Nuska is too young/clean to be for all NPCs.

AIO is a nice mix of both, leaving in most of the detail from XCE but lightening it up. Warpaints look more like tatoo's though.

AIO + XCE gives the nice warpaints but keeps the lighter details.

 

I'm really leaning towards AIO with XCE Warpaints, Scars, etc. but figured I'd see what other people thought.

 

Pictures include:

   No lighting mod at all.

   Natural Eyes (STEP)

   Realistic Hair with AOF Believable Hair (STEP)

   UNPB Body (/w UNPB Female Armors)

 

From Left to Right (All have XCE Warpaints, Scars, etc. unless marked otherwise):

XCE For UNP, Nuska's Real Skin For Women UNP, All In One Face UNP, All In One Face UNP (overwriting XCE Warpaints, Scars, etc)

 

Breton (Preset 4):

 

Dark Elf (Preset 6):

[Neovalen]

High Elf (Preset 9):

 

Imperial (Preset 1):

[Neovalen]

Nord (Preset 1):

 

Orc (Preset 9):

[Neovalen]

Redguard (Preset 7):

 

Wood Elf (Preset 8):

[TechAngel85]

I personally prefer the third shot over (All in One?) in nearly all the shots. I use:

 

Ethereal Elven Overhaul by nuska

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24273

 

Fine Face Textures by Urshi by urshi

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27815

 

I don't play female characters so I haven't really looked any retextures for females.

[Neovalen]

I personally prefer the third shot over (All in One?) in nearly all the shots. I use:

 

Ethereal Elven Overhaul by nuska

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24273

 

Fine Face Textures by Urshi by urshi

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27815

 

I don't play female characters so I haven't really looked any retextures for females.

For men I'm using Better Males - Geonox Faces Without Beard atm but I'm still planning to evalute Fine Face Textures before I finalize the guide.

 

I dislike EEO just because it still has a bunch of bugs (some beards and vampires specifically) though I do like the concept, won't be using it until it becomes more mature.

 

The male part of the guide is still in basic form but my testing is coming along.

[Kelmych]

Like techangel, I prefer the third shot (All in one face UNP) for these faces.

[Trexasle]

I use Nuska's Women, HOWEVER, I tend to use XCE's Normal Maps to get a bit more wrinkles in, though I don't think ALL of the females in Skyrim need to look like wrinkled messes. Which is why Custom NPC Mods might be needed to alter The NPC's in the game to have wrinkles and such accordingly.

 

I'd use EEO if it was ONLY for female Elves in terms of morphs. It's obvious that Skyrim's beards are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard to scope if you edit the Morphs.

[haelfix]

Personal preference 4 > 1 ~~ 3 >>>> 2.  I think I prefer 1 to 3 a little bit, but since i've used it a lot in action it does tend to make a few too many crinkly faces and it gets old fast.

[Neovalen]

After reading your answers, I think a mix of 3 and 4 is in order. I'll see what I can come up with to get the best of both worlds. :)

[z929669]

I use Nuska's Women, HOWEVER, I tend to use XCE's Normal Maps to get a bit more wrinkles in, though I don't think ALL of the females in Skyrim need to look like wrinkled messes. Which is why Custom NPC Mods might be needed to alter The NPC's in the game to have wrinkles and such accordingly.

 

Agree with Trexasle completely.

 

Nuska is the best face mod IMO, becuase it is the only mod that makes all faces 3 dimensional. all others make the faces flat and too painted. The lighting of Nuska is very good, but the faces of Light women (Nord/Breton/HE) are just a bit too bright. Replace ing with XCE normals would be a great idea if they still look 3D after. Otherwise, the Nuska normals need a bit less shine and a few more imperfections. Still my favorite *base* though.

[Kelmych]

My biggest issue with Nuska in the screenshots is the lighting; it didn't seem realistic to me to have some parts of the face be so reflective. It isn't just that that they are too bright overall for light-skinned races - that could be due to the lighting environment rather than the face mod - but that the facial smoothness it would take to have the highlights I'm seeing doesn't seem realistic (at least for me). If this is actually an issue with the normal maps then I'd be interested to see what these faces would look like with more appropriate normal maps.

[z929669]

My biggest issue with Nuska in the screenshots is the lighting; it didn't seem realistic to me to have some parts of the face be so reflective. It isn't just that that they are too bright overall for light-skinned races - that could be due to the lighting environment rather than the face mod - but that the facial smoothness it would take to have the highlights I'm seeing doesn't seem realistic (at least for me). If this is actually an issue with the normal maps then I'd be interested to see what these faces would look like with more appropriate normal maps.

Yep, I am pretty sure that it is the normal maps. Pretty sure as well that this could maybe be *fixed* with DDSopt (or made even worse).

 

Agree that the shininess or reflectivity is too high for all, but most obvious on lighter skin; however, the ratio of reflectivity among the different facial components of all races is done correctly IMO. This is why it has a more 3D appearance I think.

 

I believe that peacefulmoments also has settled on Nuska, so you should see some of his posts on the topic. He goes into a lot of detail about matching with bodies and such.

[Trexasle]

Hell I'll go as far as to say Nuska with Vanilla HD Normals are well done, I'll post pics in a moment'

 

Nuska Default

 

Nuska with XCE Normals

 

Geez I have to get used to the forum setup here.

 

It's Subtle but it get's rid of many of the shinyness with the Nuska Realskin, but also adds Nuska awesome reddened texture which I think for a Tundra of Skyrim works very well since it is cold and all.

[Norx007]

Which mods make Ysolda look like that ?