Okay, I've looked around for tutorials and forum questions and even found a few guides on using FaceGen faces in OB (which I can do fine now), but I don't know the proper way to get the face texture usable by Oblivion. Here is where I'm at:

• I figure, the best way to use a *real* face for the PC or an NPC is to generate with FaceGen and apply it to a custom race created with CS. I think I got that part covered. I was going to use Breton, but may use Imperial since it is supposed to be the "neutral" one that applies the least modifiers to the slider settings.
  -so I just copy whatever race I want to use and edit the default stats, etc., then set the default face...
  
  
• next, I'll need a face file, so I make one with FaceGen using Photo Fit. Save the file and export as "Wavefront *.obj" and select tga (full size) as texture format.
  
  
• Now at this point, can I use something like DDS Converter 2.1 by Yannick 'Bluehair' Leon (pretty sure I found it on Nexus) to convert to tga format, or would I need a $700+ program like Adobe Photoshop to do stuff to the tga's before CS will accept them for a face texture?
  
  
• Also, if there is facial hair on the texture like a beard, will it be used in the Face texture?
  It may seem like an obvious thing, but I've seen a face file come out with the whole chin/goatee area erased. That may have been intentional, though. So I was just wondering if it's something like the ears that Oblivion doesn't use...?
  
  
• And lastly not to waste anyone's time with overly simple questions (there should be a tutorial for this stuff), uh.. is there a tutorial, that is?

I've read alot already in the past couple of days on texturing, but the face texturing seems to be different in that it is not connected to the Nif, but you need to create textures for Aging, face morphing, etc, and I am not even sure how that's done yet or if I can skip that part if I just want a particular face for a custom char (not a *real* race).

So, I don't know if any of that made any coherent sense to anyone b/c I have a headache from reading about everything from how to convert faces, FaceGen advanced tips, where to get various free programs, etc. (like GIMP) over the past couple days... :cryvaultboy:

But any HELP would be appreciated! :blush:

If you don't want to spend a whole lot of money GIMP is you go to guy. Just convert the file to dds and create a normal map you shouldn't have to worry about aging or any thing like that, as long as you texture has facial hair on it you will have facial hair ingame. You may have some trouble matching the skin tones at the neck seam though. I'm sure you can figure it out.

DDS Converter works very well, and Gimp is good too, but you need a plug-in for Gimp to handle the DDS format, as least that's how it was when I first installed Gimp. Of course, with Gimp, you can also tweak that face texture further if you like, so I recommend downloading Gimp anyway.

Here's a link to a tutorial written by Chimera, that deals with SI FaceGen modeling specifically: http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=202645&st=0&gopid=1776925&#entry1776925

Cool, thanks. That's encouraging, at least. Nice to know I'm not completely lost. I couldn't justify buying one of those others (waaaay too expensive for me - I already have an expensive hobby/profession - music!), so GIMP it will have to be.

I don't guess just converting to dds with that converter program will give me the normal map I need. Well, I found this tutorial about http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/GIMP:_Quality_Normal_Maps so that should help.