[NSFW] STEP Female Body Replacer

[ufctom]

Do I need to remove XCE or anything else from STEP Extended to test this?

[TechAngel85]

Just deactivate XCE is all that needs to be done.

[justjr]

They are not compatible? Looks like it got only half of xce files get overrided, and it still persist a lot of tintmask and facedetails.

[TechAngel85]

That's because of other elements from the XCE compilation which will be added in by using the individual XCE mods such as Scarface and High Resolution Scars. The reason they are not included in the Female Overhaul is because they go beyond just providing female components by also providing some male files as well. Therefore, I didn't package them with the Female Overhaul. The tintmasks are something that I can look into adding; however, since none of the individual mods add those. These may simply be from XCE Warpaint. I'd have to look into it.

[justjr]

Well, I'm on an Orc Hold now, no ladies just orc ladies. But soon will test the difference.

[plaGGy]

Just deactivate XCE is all that needs to be done.

 

I already guess so, but using Windsongs right now.

But yours is completely standalone, isn't it?

 

So if I really want to give feedback I have to deactivate Windsongs and only active yours and the mods from NPC-Section of 2.2.9, without XCE?

[ufctom]

I kept XCE for whatever reason. This one overwrites it.

 

Looks fantastic. Neck seam is so minimal I can't see it unless max zoom in.

 

Will I lose anything if I remove XCE / XCED? I have STEP Extended.

[TechAngel85]

You'll lose some scars and facetints if you deactivate XCE. You can leave it activated and let this overwrite it and it will be fine. Same with Windsong; however, Windsong was the base for this so the female part will be completely overwritten.

[divstator]

This is somewhat off topic, but I thought it might be useful further down the line. I have an apprentice level of understanding the whole replacer/texture/armor mesh thing. At this point it seems y'all have the "core" answer that y'all were seeking. So for the extended "pack" replacer I would highly recomend looking at the bodyslide2/outfit studio program/mod. STEP Guides for these tools along the DDSOpt, LOOT etc. kind of thing. This tool allows you to adapt ANY armor for ANY body mesh. Mesh being the keyword here. Textures are a whole different category.

 

After this it kinda gets into tl;dr territory, you've been warned.

 

From reading this thread, I've been unable to tell if y'all have an in depth understanding of how the whole texture/mesh/armor system works. I'll try to be brief, not making any promises though. The game meshes are literally tied to their textures. You can see this in Nifskope. And while to a certain degree the body mesh isn't part of the armor mesh, it really is. The armor mesh and the body mesh are tied together in the nif file. But outside the nif file, while still in 3d model land, they are seperate. The seams in the body meshes are the neck hands and feet. The seams in the textures for those same meshes are in what are called the UV maps. The reason I state this is because it seems, that the seams are getting confused. While seams are noticeable in meshes, it's because the parts don't line up perfectly and seams in textures are because the wallpaper patterns are misaligned.

 

That's why it's best to stick with textures made for a particular mesh, if you start messing with the textures without knowing where the UV seams are you wind up with noticeable seams. That's why the skin textures are for UNP, CBBE etc. because each mesh has a different UV map. What makes the Bodyslide2 tool really cool is, it modifies the armor/clothing meshes before it turns them into nif files. That way you can use whichever body you want with whichever armor you want. A fair amount of it is automated for the more popular body types, CBBE, ADEC, UNP, Vanilla etc. If you're missing an armor, you import it, pull out the original body, put in whichever body you want, modifiy the armor to match the body with the paintbrush.

 

There is more to it than that, but not much. Anyways, as far as clipping is concerned, on NON-transparent armors, the clipping occurs because the parts of the body mesh that are under the clothes/armor is not supposed to be there. What ever parts of the body are covered by the armor, the body mesh underneath is supposed to be zapped.

 

As far as the TBBP or BBP is concerned, those are animations. HDT is not. HDT is a post processing thing kinda like ENB, but for physics instead of graphics. It's why you will see some people recommending using both. It's also why HDT isn't limited to boobies. It's not perfect, but IMHO it is better than static animations.

 

As far as STEP trying to deal with the female replacer debate...good luck. Best thing I think would be to go with a "patch" that either does one of two things. Make a patch that covers all body types or make a guide on how to use Bodyslide2 and HDT. Both are hosted on Nexus now I think. I hope have helped and not "muddied" the waters over much.

 

Bodyslide Tutorials: (NSFW)

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1324094-unofficial-bodyslide-2outfit-studio-tutorials/

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1281867-os-tutorial-anything-to-anything-conversion/

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1286275-os-tutorial-anything-to-cbbe-or-cbbe-to-anything/

 

HDT on Nexus.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57408/?

 

Bodyslide2 on Nexus.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49015/?

 I'll try to respond if there are any questions, but I really wanna play now.

[TechAngel85]

Thanks for the info! I sort of learned most of that through the process of putting together this Overhaul. For now, it will be used for both Core and Extended. I've seen videos of users putting Bodyslide2 through its paces and it is a rather impressive tool while still remain relatively simple to use. It might be something we look into in the future, but for now...I think we're just going to stick with the simple replacer I've put together. I would love to learn more in the area of editing meshes and UV maps in order to really fix the vanilla females; however, I don't have anywhere near the time to do that right now. Maybe I'll attempt to recruit Brumbek into doing this...but then I'll have to redo the textures again...

[kuroyume87]

Good day everybody and my apologies if I come out of nowhere... I have just (re) started my adventure in skyrim modding, and as I made my way through the Step guide I got to the characters section. Unsatisfied as I was about the female npcs appearance, I tried searching the internet for a body replacement with full compatibility with vanilla assets... and I got here. Long story shot: Dragon King, I am testing your compilation right now and I believe it's the only hope for us poor mortals who are just asking for something along the lines of Better males.Well... for the moment, I must report 2 issues: first of all, neck seams. True, they are barely noticeable. But it depends from npc to npc. For example, I noticed in Ysolda (whiterun) the neck seam sticks out quite badly

Also (issue n.2) Old people have "young" textured body. At least while wearing clothes. I tried moving "consistent old people" after your mod in the MO left pane, so as to overwrite, but it doesn't seem to solve the issue. All in all, Dragon King, I believe your compilation is already the best option for people who wanna improve the vanilla female body. I forgot to add so far I am testing in full-vanilla light environment: I have installed no ENB nor lighting overhaul yet.

 

BTW.. Sorry if that may seem nitpicking, but one of the things i most hate of the vanilla female body (and unfortunately, only the most "intrusive" body mods seem to properly address it) is the shape of the calfs (lower leg muscles). It's really too low poly. It may be because i am not using the HRDLCs but just the optimized unofficial version tho. 

 

For the moment, these are me humble 2 cents... I'd like to know if you all experience the same issues (may be just me). Thanks in advance and I'll try to help with testing, altho my vacation days are almost over T_T

 

PS And sorry for my bad English... I am Italian

[TechAngel85]

I don't have any neck seams on Ysolda...could you post a picture? As for the young bodies on older faces...I'm not sure where that is coming from. This mod only provides normals for old bodies and faces (texturesactorscharactersfemaleold). The textures are most likely used from the main female file. I'll have to look into it how it's done in vanilla, but it's likely there is no way around this.

 

As for the shape of any body part, that will not be addressed at this time because that will require mesh work which I have no clue how to do.

[kuroyume87]

I am using Mod Organizer and I placed your compilation at the very bottom of the left panel list. There is nothing overwriting it. Here is a couple of quick screenshots I took in Whiterun. In certain conditions the seam is barely noticeable, in others it really sticks out, esp. on the back of the neck. Perhaps just adding a re-lighting mod ala Climates of Tamriel or an enb (but I don't plan on using one) would change things drastically, but for the moment here is what I seem to get:

 

 

 

As I wrote before, it could be much worse, but I think there's still margin for an improvement

 

[Aiyen]

Different weathers will make seams more or less noticeable. Since it is not just a matter of UV and texture mismatch... there also is a very large lighting component to the mix. Depending on a given weathers image space values then you can make seams more or less noticeable. With or without ENB does not really matter. The only difference is that with ENB you got a bit more control. 

 

Simple example would be if you got a seam that is almost not noticeable.. when you then have a weather that increase the contrast image space value then the seam will get more noticeable since the area of the seam is most likely going to be a high contrast area pixel wise. 

 

Most of the shots kuroyume has just shown is mainly lighting related... since you can clearly see a general difference in appearance between the head and torso. It is not just a simple texture mismatch. 

[DoubleYou]

I had seen some neck seams too, and yes, lighting has a lot to do with it.