I'm quite familiar with the concept of hybridization via console commands.

Yet some traits of elves (pointy brows, triangular jaw) cannot be completely erased to make elves look closer to humans.

I wonder if there's either a savegame editor or a MOD that let people chose the face traits independently from the race, not only for NPCs but for the player too.

Could someone help me or show me a trick I haven't thought of?

From what I can tell that part of things are pretty locked down. I hate it, I tried to make an elvenish race with a Brenton-like face and elven ears, but it turns out I can't do that because you can't edit that without making a new head mesh (all player races except beast races use the same head model). Even creating a character in the CK is annoyingly restrictive when it comes to making their face. I miss back in the Fallouts and Oblivion how you could just use Facegen itself with the right programs (loved scanning faces into the game) but now everything seems locked up, but I know Facegen is still behind the scenes so hopefully someone someday will find a way to allow access to facegen data like face parts and charging people's faces less restrictively. I know it'll never be like the old days, but I can hope.

The only thing I can tell you is that in each player race there is a list of head parts that have check boxes of if they are compatible or not with the race, but it's mostly brows, lips, and ears, however the elven brow is texture based so as long as you're that race you're stuck with it. However a way to remove the elven brow is to use a mod like http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=29 or the version that goes with http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=30 and I think a more mild version is bundled into http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2356. I however use http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2332 which makes younger characters appear their age, and seems to decrees the brow a little but not completely. Don't know what to do about the jaw besides messing with character generation, don't be scared to go to the extreme end of the slider if it helps. Well, that's all I can say, good luck.

Thank you for the answer.

Ideally, I am aiming at 'tricking' the game into rendering a different version of the mesh using the basic resources available. I looked into the Nexus database of mods and found a few 'better elf faces' files which all relied on custom content. I also noticed that the head mesh is the same for all races so what I'm really looking for is a way to bypass the frustrating limitations imposed on some facial features. Why all elven faces must look triangular?!?

By the way, I took a few minutes after I got a simple idea and made http://i.imgur.com/Q5kCz.jpg, would you be interested?

That looks great!

I'm having a hard time getting hair to work though, you can't tell with that hair on that angle but clipping with ears is a problem, so is the hair fitting on the head properly. Half-Elf is easy to make, just take a human race like a Brenton and under copied data use an elf's morph data, like wood elf (I find that combo works best, or at least to my taste). Just a warning, starting with an elven race causes normal mapping anomaly on the face that may or may not be favorable. You have to keep the Brenton presets in the preset page and also use the Brenton Armor Race under copied data. During character generation it'll use Brenton resources, most of them work but I need to use the Wood Elf hair, as such I'm still not finished with it but I may release it later because it turned out better then I thought it would.

Interesting but it seems it doesn't get rid of the triangular face that plagues all the elves, or is it just a coincidence?

You can fix it with some tweaks, mostly shortening the chin and widening the jaw but it doesn't go completely away. Now, if I used High Elf or Dark Elf then it'd be harder, but Wood Elf has the least weird face (in my opinion) which is what I'm basing this on. With a little adjustment while making a character, is this better?

http://i.imgur.com/6Y7JV.jpg

That actually looks pretty good, Searyan.

Females don't suffer from the angularity as much as males, though, of course, you can't create an elf with a round face. What does the female version of your half-elf race look like?

http://i.imgur.com/zQEHv.jpg (it's now the second preset [we're working on them now]) I think it looks good, but the jaw is still skinny, however widening the jaw during character generation may help with that, but it's all up to taste.

I wish they'd at least given us control over the length and width of the head. That would have solved a lot of design problems and it should have been easy to implement. Looking good, though.

Yes, better. I will post one screenshot of a female altmer who looks almost "non-elf". Some traits, like pointy, edgy cheeckbones don't go away. Overall, I'm not satisfied with the look of elves in this game and I wish we could have more freedom like in Oblivion. Oblviion facegen procedure exposed better the inner workings of the algorithm. it's learning curve was very step, especially for people without a backgroud in visual arts, but the end result was better, more flexible

These are amazing. Good work.

I'd like to get a "Hylian" race though. XD

Well, recently I uploaded a beta version of the mod I actually use myself. It's stable besides not being able to become a vampire and werewolf (also a power that doesn't scale very well [a little powerful at first, arguably not very useful later on]). I don't know if I'd ever finish it but for anyone who wants it here it is for now.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14027

I know about that one mod that helps make custom races compatible, but thanks to the way I made this race I'd basically need to remake it, and I wouldn't have the flexibility I'd want with the headparts. Oh well, I guess I'll at least try, but I won't have any freetime this weekend.

P.S. No cookie for necropost (kinda, not really I guess but it was knocked down more then a few pages)