I've tried practically every body mod and they've all got neck seams... even if the posted images do not. Most recently I'm trying out TGND, and the display images look great... but ingame... bleh, awful neck seams. I've tried Luchaires seam reducer, tried different textures, tried custom races and default races... it's uniformly bad.

Accidentally posted before I was quite ready, but I guess I don't have much to add anyways, lol... oops at the commas in the topic title...

There is no way to remove neck seams, because characters vary in age and color the textures cant match up perfectly.
I open my textures photoshop and edit them to color match better, and add new one tone colors to the necks of head and body so they work better.

I suggest to use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18669, dedicated to hide the seam. Searching for "neck seam" on Nexus or PES should show you some of them.

Unfortunately that's not compatible with TGND body... it clips a little and doesn't cover the seam very well besides.

What textures are you using? TGND body doesn't come with body textures. So knowing what body textures and face textures you are currently using would help.

This is a screenie of my character Pang, who uses the TGND body, HGEC textures and face textures by uh ... either navtsea or enayla, I can't remember right off hand. She also uses the neck seam concealer that was linked for you already without much issue at all. Although she basically has a pretty darned seamless body, I add that necklace for flavor and for the off chance that in certain lighting you might see more of a seam than normal.

http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww187/OuijaU/Pang/Pangwater.jpg

Ah, it turns out the clipping might not be due to the body but just a problem with the mod itself... It clips when you take a weapon out: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jedinat/ScreenShot11.jpg

Here's my seam without the concealer: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jedinat/ScreenShot10.jpg

And here's the not-so-covered seam: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jedinat/ScreenShot13.jpg

I'm using whatever textures come with Moonshadow Elves... but I tried vanilla races too with the same issue. My replacer for those was one of those mentioned on TGND's tesnexus page... Ozmo's I think.

Hmm ... odd. Although I'm not sure if Moonshadow elves have a different neckline perhaps and that is why the concealer doesn't work well with them? Anyhow, you won't get it exactly perfect but you can come pretty close. It takes some work though messing around with skin tone/complexion sliders. The best advice I can offer is when you create a character, make sure you click the "reset" button in the face generation section. That tends to snap new body/face textures into place, then start work from there. It took me probably about 2 hours alone just messing with Pang's coloring to get it the way it is. And dark elf and redguards are just a nightmare no matter WHAT I try and do LOL

Maybe greenwarden will see this. She has some awesome talent and her characters are as close to perfect as one can hope for. She usually has really good, helpful advice.

Look at this; there is definitely something off:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jedinat/ScreenShot14.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jedinat/ScreenShot15.jpg

What Nivea said. It seems impossible to get rid of the neck seam completely. My char is a Moonshadow Elf, using HGEC - and I tried switching to TGND just because of the the neck seam, but couldn't see much if any difference really. So I switched back to HGEC. But even so it's much less noticeable on my char than in your pics, so something seems to be up. I'd even say that it has been less noticeable on my current Moonshadow Elf char than on any before it.

Here's the neck seam at its worst in my game: http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/18688/785812.jpg
At its best it's almost unnoticeable: http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/18688/785822.jpg
BTW, the necklace in DG Jewelry for All works perfectly with HGEC: http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/18688/785811.jpg

I wish I could give an exact list of what I'm using, but I've tweaked both body and face textures back and forth so not 100% on what I have ATM. I'd double check both the body replacer install and the face texture install. But since my initial EVE HGEC and Moonshadow Elves install it has looked much as it does above when it comes to the neck seam.

Did you look closely at the last two pictures I posted? If you look to the right of the neck it's clearly more than just a seam. It's lumpy. I'm not sure if that's just how it is or what. The body texture seems to be two-toned in certain light as well, as seen in the image with the orc...

I'll check out that necklace, thanks.

Yes, that's why I think something is up with your install - it doesn't look normal.

I just deactivated all plugins except for Alternate Start, moved my mesh and texture folders to the desktop, and then reinstalled the body meshes. Same problem. If anything, it looks worse.

Maybe it's just TGND itself that is flawed in that way? I dunno, it's not all that noticeable with long hair I guess.

That necklace, btw, works pretty well. Better than the other one although still very slight clipping.

I would have just gone with HGEC but I love what I see of the vanilla clothing and armor replacements. They fit the body so much more slickly than any other replacers I've seen. (usually there's ugly "fill" spaces connecting the clothing to the body)

OK. I have to admit that I never checked out/compared the TGND replacers. No idea then.

BTW

this might be an interesting fact for those who are really into race modding, particularly dealing with neck seams..

games most often are based around using unsigned normal maps. so you all are aware of 0-255 for the normal map RGB channels and the neutral 0 normal... basically this means that 0, a straight normal vector, is represented as 127.5, but the normal map can only store integers. So 0 is stored as 128.

Now here is the sneaky part, DXT compression will NEVER store a value of 128 in the R and B channels. the channel bit depth do not allow for this, being 5:6:5 RGB. only the G channel is capable of storing the 0 normal. I don't think many people know that. So far no one has pointed that out anywhere on the net as far as I am aware.

basically what this means in terms of using DXT in the game, is that at UV seams, a seam will appear on the model as well. I guess, perhaps if the UV seams between the 2 shells in question are exactly matched, ie aligned and rotated to be the same. the tangent basis has a particular orientation when the normal map is created, so if it is created using bitmap(height map to normal map method, and the UV seams aren't orientated in the same direction, and then you use DXT compression on the normal, you are introducing a bent normal at any seams. Although it is very, slight, but I can show picures of bent normals caused by flat R:127 G:127 B:255 normal maps, on UV seams that have different orientation. Right next to and opposed to R:128 G:128 B:255 flat normal maps, I am not just making this up .

obvious solution is 8888ARGB. Since the modders who make these textures almost invaribly use massive 2048x2048 dxt compressed normal maps, I have no idea why on earth they do this, not even considering it will have a very slightly bent normal, and just considering the normals by far and large aren't baked from geometry and have very little detail and are predominately smooth, especially on non-beast races. < but this is where the neck seam is most apparent, the scale and fur will help to hide seams to a great extent if done correctly. So my proposed solution is to use half resolution 8888ARGB on your normal maps. I believe this to be a superior solution.

Now i don't claim this will eliminate neck seams, but it will in theory eliminate bent normals in the normal map. And in theory, will help.

I have to credit HugePinball as a big player in helping to discover this.

Ok, this reminds me of when I saw MacBeth without ever having studied it in school. After listening to what was apparently English for the last hour or so, I had to ask for a translation from my husband (I am a native English speaker btw).

Anyway, could you post your findings in one of the http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page tutorials? If you don't want to do that, perhaps you could send your findings to http://www.truancyfactory.com/tutorials/oblivion01.html, who is currently putting some very detailed tutorials together.

I'm sure this would make a lot more sense if I was able to create my own meshes and textures (I don't have the artistic skill for either) and I think it would be valuable to those who do this regularly, if we could fiind a way to spread the word... I also admit that since I don't do this stuff myself, I wouldn't be looking at the tutorials and whatnot, so I don't know if you have published it already. However, as a user how also wishes the neck seams were reduced a bit, I'd appreciate anyone who could at least mitigate this problem...

i don't even maintain my oblivion mods any more, let alone the wiki. I'll point TheMagician to this thread. if he makes use of this info it's up to him, and anyone else.

basically what i just said is> if you dxt compress your normal maps, they always contain a bent normal, UV shell/UVseam orientation is important to the output pixel in the created normal map,ie it is particular to that orientation, if you rotate pieces of the normal map, it will light incorrectly. if the UV seams are not aligned lets say head/body neck seam> they probably aren't from looking at every body replacer going, then a bent normal will be introduced at the seam. This will cause the seam to displace any lighting that catches it.

I really can't explain it much more simpler than that. the cause is far more complex than the solution. Maybe you can match the neck UV seam orientation in the body and head, then the bent normal won't displace lighting in different directions, in theory at least, i never experimented to actually see if this is actually the case.. Or use a flat normal color, ie 128 128 255, RGB along the seams, and save as 8888argb. .

don't forget to match the specular map color to, this will end up high lighting the seam as well.

it's worth a shot, this has virtually completely removed similar seams that show up under lighting. but the neck seam is a more complex issue, with many additional factors involved.

Thanks for the information and explanation, Ghogiel. This is something I'd been wondering about in relation to my tileset but hadn't had time yet to investigate. Your timing is most propitious.

I confess that work on the tutorial is at a bit of a standstill at the moment while I work out the details for my current project, but I'll be sure to include it at some point in the modeling component of the tutorial. I agree that this should probably be added to the wiki in a note somewhere so that the information is preserved for others in the meantime. I've made a copy of it for my own notes, but I hardly have time for a proper write up. Maybe another experienced modeler can take a few minutes to find a proper home for it.

:poke:

If not, it will probably be a while before I get around to actually experimenting with it and writing up a detailed explanation. In any case, thanks again for the info.

I use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19738, and it helped, it removed most of the coloring issues at the character's back... so one shoulder does not have another color than the other.

Ghogiel - I'm sure your original explanation was clear enough for those doing this kind of work Since I still can't keep textures vs meshes straight, I don't think I'll be worrying about the orientation of the UV shell or seam anytime soon! I'm glad that your comments have been noted and hopefully this is posted to a wiki or tutorial at some point.