I'm having an odd problem with custom NPCs. To make new ones, I duplicate Vanilla ones (specifically, the TestQAHiuLai NPCs) by changing their Editor IDs to create new forms. The problem I'm having is this: I can make the face look however I want (dark, light, thick, thin, etc.), but no matter what I do, the body will not match up to the face. This is not a problem with the faces but with the bodies. For instance, if I create an African American, the body will be the color of a Caucasian while the head remains that of an African American. How can I fix this? I'm using FO3 GOTY edition.

1. Make sure the NPC has "can be all races" selected.
2. Make sure there's a "bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1" entry in your fallout3.ini.
3. Change your .esp mod into an .esm master using FO3Edit.
You can make a copy of FO3Edit.exe and then rename the copy to FO3MasterUpdate.exe. Then just run FO3MasterUpdate on your mod and it will turn it into an esm for you. To put it back into an esp, make another copy and name it FO3MasterRestore.exe. Then run that program on your ESM mod. You will probably need to use FallOut Mod Manager (FOMM) to make sure your mod is the first in your load order list when you make .esp/.esm changes to it.

As a note- the whiting that ocurrs to characters seems to happen only when settings on the NPCs texture tab are messed with, or when the face shape settings are changed too far from the original NPC that the custom copy came from.

Thanks for the reply. So far I've got this:
1. Done.
2. Does bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1 need to be in a specific section of the Fallout3.ini (like [Display]) or can it go anywhere?
3. TES4Gecko works for Fallout3 .ESPs, so I'll use that (it'll be a bit quicker ). I don't understand why I have to convert to master and back again, though. Why is this necessary? And will it be necessary every time I add new NPCs to the mod? (It's intended to be a constant a WIP)


Odd. This happens to my NPCs when I just duplicate them. For instance, I open TestQAHiuLaiFemale01 (African American female) and change the Editor ID and nothing else-no changes to the face, skin tone or anything. The new entry has the African American textures on the head, but Caucasian textures on the body and no amount of tweaking will fix it. Even checking Can Be All Races before duplicating it has no effect. Seriously, it looks like Dr. Frankenstein got loose in the Wasteland.

I believe the bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1 can go anywhere in an appropriate sounding section as all the entries get loaded anyway regardless. I just put it at the top.

The 2-tone issue is caused by the last patch issued by bethesda, which never got corrected and is included in the GOTY version by default. It has to do with how the game renders character from an .esp file, but NOT from master files, so changing it to a master is the fix. Yes, it gets annoying changing it to master to play it, and back to .esp to change something in it, but I'd bet there isn't many of us that isn't used to doing that by now. Fortunately making the change from one to another doesn't take very long at all, just inconvenient.

I'm having this same problem. Thanks for the head's up, Bonedog. African American women should not have Caucasian bodies... :brokencomputer: