SKYRIMLE Skyrim Child Overhaul (by Hallgarth)

[oqhansoloqo]

Going by the compares that you had up before (lol - that's all I got, besides current STEP), I agree that "Rustic" had the best clothes and by the compares did look pretty white.  I also agree that the idea that SCO makes the children look like their parents is a good concept - they looked kind of weird in the compares though (like someone else said), but Tech says they look better in-game.  Someone else referred to "RS" hair looking like "Apachii" (ApachiiSkyHair).  I agree with that - "RS" would be good if all the adults in a mod list were using ApachiiSkyHair (they don't in Core or Extended STEP though).

 

I think they all look better than current STEP.  I must admit that all I really used were the compares though (and my recollection of current STEP children).

Tech - maybe the people of Skyrim all secretly worship Dibella and sleep around considerably, lol (the children not looking like their "parents").

Edited March 6, 2015 by oqhansoloqo

[EssArrBee]

The little girl in the first set looks a lot like brie larson. I can't unsee it.

[Nozzer66]

Having tested all of them in game before now, (And this is based on some older data)

 

RS wins for me FOR NOW. SCO would win if and when the Orc children for one get properly voiced. (Now note this was based on an early version when they definitely weren't voiced. If that's changed then so will my vote)

[TechAngel85]

They're not voiced yet. Author said that the children's voices coming out of a child orc felt off so he went with unvoiced. Someone familiar with Audacity could probably whip something more suited fairly easily.

 

In other news, SCO author missed some things. The USKP changes need to be forwarded to the ESM, which is super simple. Hearthfire and probably UHP changes need to be forwarded to the SCOHearthfire.esp (addon). Have yet to check the Dragonborn Addon.

[TechAngel85]

It would seem for SCO, that the face data for the females might require a new game to be added in correctly since this data is baked into saves. This is because the author went a step further by creating female meshes for the female children...some of which was using the male meshes.
 

 

And the missing faces are most likely my fault. I'm not sure I ever checked the girl's faces during an existing playthrough because I didn't have one. I gave them a different head mesh, and clearly for some people the game is trying to load the male head on some of them (from savefile data), which I made unplayable, causing them to choose none. (this is a guess, it might be different things for different people.)

 

[Harpalus]

It would seem for SCO, that the face data for the females might require a new game to be added in correctly since this data is baked into saves. This is because the author went a step further by creating female meshes for the female children...some of which was using the male meshes.

 

That's a good argument in Rustic Children's favour unless this issue can be fixed. The consensus so far is against RS children in STEP, even if nobody seems to dislike it. I wish RS children offered a "vanilla hair" option. It doesn't seem to.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Harpalus

[TechAngel85]

Yeah, RS is just too far away from vanilla for STEP. Rustic doesn't have these issues because it's just a straight mesh/texture replacement. SCO does a lot more than just replace textures.

[TechAngel85]

I'm fairly positive that the black face issue with some children is due to the data being baked into saves. This method resolves it for current saves: https://www.wolflore.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=2156 This means that if SCO is chosen, it will require a new game. This isn't the first mod that has required a new game that we've included ( aMb content addon, anyone?); however, rare they may be. Question is, do the benefits outweigh the cost? IMO, yes. But I can understand why most would want to go with Rustic Children simply because of this issue. The issue is fixable for those that want to fix it, though. Only real issue remaining is the conflicts that need to be forwarded, but I think he has someone helping him with that.

[Nozzer66]

That's exactly why I use RS. Cause the vanilla children make me want to drown kittens, and Rustic Children is little more than Vanilla fancied up.

[DoubleYou]

It is this debate among current solutions that make me want to vote no just because of that fact. We want STEP Core to be a baseline that you can build off from. From that standpoint, we could only hope to squeeze it in Extended.

 

I still need to look at SCO in-game on a new save. Hopefully that TES5Edit patching is done soon so I don't have to do it.

[Hallgarth]

Hello, I'm the mod author for the mod in question. Yes, there are a few things that need to be fixed. Due to the issue with female heads, I will be reverting them to using the male ones. All that's different really between the two is the diffuse and normal map.

 

While making the mod, I did correct some mistakes, such as some morphs being incorrectly labelled, causing issues with simple things like blinking. I also discovered that the children are Fallout 3 children, just slightly modified.

 

As for them looking weird, yeah it turns out making morphs from scratch is hard. Maybe I need a second set of eyes on them and maybe they need tweaking.

 

Okay, I'll be straight with exactly what this mod does. At the basic level, it adds morphs to the vanilla child head, eyes and mouth. I added brows and leftface/rightface parts. They also use model space normals instead of their original tangent space. Their looks could be significantly improved by modifying the normals and diffuse textures, like the various face mods/body mods do. I myself am not a texture artist, so the mod suffers in that regard.

 

Right at this moment, from an aesthetical, lore friendly and a stability standpoint, Rustic Children is a better choice for you to go with.

[Nozzer66]

Hallgarth, you get a +1 for honesty. Have your mod tracked and ready to go. Thanks for your work. :)

[TechAngel85]

Regardless of what STEP goes with, I love your mod and the concept behind it. Rustic is nothing more than a re-texture. SCO goes beyond that by correcting and fixing the children. I stand behind this and it will be in my personal setup.

[Kelmych]

I tried all three of the child replacement mods we are testing in a game. My conclusions are fairly close to Tech's. Rustic children is good (especially the clothing), but the children still look very similar. If the children in the game seemed to be a bit older/more mature I would probably choose RS children. The variability that SCO adds is particularly important, and seems more important than some of the other characteristics for which I prefer one or both of the other two mods. The chins on a few of the male children (e.g., Francois in Honorhall Orphanage) in SCO seem a bit unusual, but as long as the faces don't turn black (I was fortunate, I guess, that I didn't have this happen with the particular children I looked at) the issues like this don't seem major.

[phazer11]

From what I've tried out so far (don't need to bother with RS children since I use it in my personal profile) Rustic Children is the only one I can in good conscience recommend for STEP currently. Skyrim Child Overhaul is in my opinion simply not mature enough and apart from the non-voiced deal the morphs need work, if it had more options and the bugs were worked out and more work put it it might be a contender ideally something allowing for the combining of the textures of something like Prince and Pauper or Rustic Children with Skyrim Child Overhaul would be great.