Neck/Head seams with vanilla textures

[ploeperpengel]

I finally managed to get my modbuild (almost perfectly) stable and just now started to notice ugly seams and discoloring around the neck and especially noticeable at the back of the head also a crossshaped seam at the base of the skull with male characters.

 

I don't use any texture replacers for male characters in fact my modded females suffer less from that issue than the vanilla males. I use modorganizer so my skyrim folder is pretty clean but just to be sure I deleted anything there except the bethesda bsas and checked integrity with steam. The issues persist even running the game via launcher using only vanilla content. Using ENB seems to exaggerate the issue which supposedly made me notice what I didn't before.

 

I tried to search the internet but all threads I found died out without a clue. Does anybody have an idea?

 

Screenshot in my dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/akbbqalty52y2cr/RskoIdmqyX

[Aiyen]

That looks a bit odd for vanilla textures only! Are you sure you do not have something in that alters the faces (ie not body replacers, but just faces) ?

I can in no way reproduce that effect for just pure vanilla textures, since they are made so they blend very well on a large range off lighting conditions. At least to my experience.

[ploeperpengel]

That looks a bit odd for vanilla textures only! Are you sure you do not have something in that alters the faces (ie not body replacers, but just faces) ?

I can in no way reproduce that effect for just pure vanilla textures, since they are made so they blend very well on a large range off lighting conditions. At least to my experience.

Yes absolutly sure my data folder is clean. I use modorganizer/enbmanager. I took the shots with just ENB and alternate start mod installed but I also got through bloody helgen again without enb and really just vanilla to be sure. The seams persist though are harder to notice with all that ambient light and hardly any shadow. Here's another shot:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/90sjqx0qaxycsr5/really%20vanilla.bmp

 

As the inis were also newly generated I can possibly exclude those as well.

 

Maybe something driver related? Here's my settings:

 

https://img.techpowerup.org/130914/nvidia_20130915_024701.png

https://img.techpowerup.org/130914/nvidia_20130915_024816.png

 

Or maybe steam caching something somewhere that might interfere?

[johnnyboy88]

That definitely looks like a left over mod.

 

If you want to truly get rid of any installed mods, not just deactivate them, open the skyrim/data folder. Delete everything there EXCEPT for skyrim.esm, skyrim-xxxx.bsa (there are several of those), update.esm/.bsa, and the .esm/.bsas for any DLC you have.

 

Then run your verify cache files.

[ploeperpengel]

That definitely looks like a left over mod.

 

If you want to truly get rid of any installed mods, not just deactivate them, open the skyrim/data folder. Delete everything there EXCEPT for skyrim.esm, skyrim-xxxx.bsa (there are several of those), update.esm/.bsa, and the .esm/.bsas for any DLC you have.

 

Then run your verify cache files.

That's exactly what I did as stated in the first post.

[johnnyboy88]

Yes I'm aware you said that in your first post. It just seems like you missed something. Because it seems rather odd that you're the only one with head/body mismatch on vanilla textures.

[ploeperpengel]

Yes I'm aware you said that in your first post. It just seems like you missed something. Because it seems rather odd that you're the only one with head/body mismatch on vanilla textures.

I'm not the only one but I admit it's a rare bug.

[ploeperpengel]

So this persists even after a clean install and I'm starting to wonder wether this is a bug or normal behavior and everyone else including bethesda and my earlier self has been blind.

 

There's still one thing that strikes me odd. Everytime(even after the complete deinstall, delete everything, reinstall procedure) steam seems unable to check the integrity of the installscript.vdf and redownloads it. Is that normal behavior?

 

My Skyrim isn't at the default install path but placed at "C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim" is it possible for that to cause issues?

[Aiyen]

Its a mesh/texture issue, so install path should have nothing to do with it.

 

If you want to isolate the issue, then try to extract the .bsa archives, and find the head mesh and load it up in nifskope. You can also apply the texture in that program. If its a general issue with your drivers etc. then it should also show up in there.

 

Alternatively try to download and install new meshes and textures for body and head, and see if the problem persists.

[ploeperpengel]

yes definitly looks the same in nifskope like it's being rendered within game https://www.dropbox.com/s/08a0ojuy8rh2v7m/malehead.png

 

Does anyonehave a picture how the male head is supposed to look in nifskope? For me it looks like the texture is streched on the upper back of the head and sqeezed on the neck, like the uv mapping is all wrong and that's being extracted from vanilla.

[ploeperpengel]

Ok I reverted back to nvidia whql instead of beta drivers and the problem is somewhat lessened, still visible though but understandable to be overlooked(especially if you put hair on your character it's hardly noticeable). My assumption is there's indeed a bethesda bug present but some drivers and configurations make it less apparent. The older drivers didn't change the appearance at all in nifskope and it's actually quite hard to believe this is only a driver problem if nifskope shows a distorted texture on a mesh. If someone has a malehead nif/vanilla texture combi that looks good in nifskope and works well with vanilla textures I'd be much oblieged if he/she could  upload that or point me to a link.