I'm trying so hard to make my own follower but the bits and pieces to getting it all together are separated all across a bunch of topics and no given technique for fixing the blackface problem seems to work without doing the whole process in a specific way.

It's a bug in the CK, beth acknowledged and working on it.

As you say, there are a couple of work-arounds, but they are limited and force you down a certain path.

If they don't fit what you want, patience may be the only other option, sadly

Well, I know there are workarounds, but they all seem to rely on how you start making the NPC to begin with, so I was hoping somebody put a start-to-finish thing together. I'm looking for all this information compiled in one place, because having to jump around topics is really confusing.

There's a job for you then

I can't get any of them to work. I am definitely not the person to create such a thing.

My understanding - I just put character creation/editing on the backburner until the CK bug is fixed - is that you either follow the workaround (from start to finish) or you get dark-faces.

I'm not sure anyone has a method - I've not seen one posted - that is flexible, and works 100% of the time?

Have a search, there is a topic with comments from a beth-developer (soemwhere - we generating about 10-pages a day on this forum!) on how to do the workaround ...

I dont think you understand what I'm tryin to say.

Each method posted relies on you making an NPC a specific way to BEGIN with, but the methods assume you've already made and tested the NPC. None of them specify how to actually create the NPC itself.

What exactly does this "black-face" issue effect? Can I add mostly generic custom NPC's?

It affects any and all custom NPCs and lik e90% of edited NPCs. It makes the face/head texture significantly darker than the rest of the body.

strange... i made a custom NPC merchant and it has matching head/body skin tone in-game

Oh, I understand, but I don't think anyone can give you what you want. It is bugged. there is a workaround, but it is of no use to some people / some things you want to do

That's great. The scary purple face is very, very scary and not just a little bit of a mismatch.


@Cervidanti - Are you saying you would like to follow http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Creating_an_Actor tutorial from the wiki for making a new NPC from scratch? It's good and should give you a good idea of what to do. I didn't get the impression that the esm/esp method required anything specific in how you made the NPC, but I did make a brand new NPC and it's working fine for me.

That doesn't do anything special that would stop the issue from happening...it's just the basic way to create an actor. Make a new person, give them a name, give them an appearance. I dunno why it would work for some and not for others...

The bug occurs when editing the appearance (colours/textures) of a created NPC (whether existing NPC or cloned).

If you just clone and NPC and use the defaults, as the tutorial advices, you won't get any issues.

Okay, so...problem still persists, then. Back to the first post of hte topic, every other post may as well not even be here...

One of the gamesas employees posted a quick solution on another thread:
Make your changes.
Click OK.
Highlight NPC in the Object Window.
CRTL + F4
Ok.

After I read that, I went on a rampage changing people, combining face paints, etc... they all worked every time.
The method does create a new file for each NPC altered in Data\Textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\Skyrim.esm\ (the last is a directory, not an esm file)

Pressing ctrl-F4 does not do anything

Ok. Step by step.
Make changes to NPC in Actor window.
Click OK. The Actor window closes.
On the Object window, click once on the NPC to highlight it.
Press CTRL+F4
A window pops up asking you to confirm: "Export face gen data for all selected NPCs?
Click Yes.
A little window pops up saying "Done!"
Save plug in.
2 new files will be created in Data\Textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\Skyrim.esm\ , one is a dds, the other a tga. You should be able to delete the tga.
Another file will be created in Data\Meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\Skyrim.esm

That works for me every time.

And on top of that I need a tutorial anyway because despite asking a HUNDRED damn times NOBODY seems to know how to make a [censored] hireling properly. Of course the one I'm trying to make now doesn't work AND has the stupid face texture issue. [censored]. Once, just once, I'd love to see bethesda fix things.

A window pops up asking you to confirm: "Export face gen data for all selected NPCs?

No, it doesnt.

Well, I guess my CK is special, then...
Here's a shot of Aela the Huntress with combined warpaint and no freckles. The method above is exactly how I did it.
http://i.imgur.com/RsTYm.jpg

You don't have to be a [censored]. Nothing pops up. And hey, I managed to figure out why! For some stupid-ass reason, it only works if you're under the correct "actors" tab. Looking at it from search results under "all"? Doesnt work. Search results under "actors"? Doesnt work. Search result under Actors -> Actor -> Breton -> Male advlt? Works. So STUPID!

That said, it didn't fix a thing. His face is still blackened. And I still can't hire him. He has Potential Follower and Potential Hireling and Current Follower and Current Hireling, with both Current factions given a value of -1, but I can't do anything but tell him "Another time then". This is so annoying. I have been trying to get this straight since the day the CK came out and nobody seems to know how to do it, yet I've seen a bunch of follower mods showing up. In fact the first google result for "skyrim how to make follower construction kit" is MY TOPIC asking why the follower I was trying to make wouldn't work.

This is so stupid. I don't understand why none of this works.