Getting weird eyes whenever a body armor (or clothes) is equipped

[bjornk]

Don't know if anyone else has experienced this before but I have a really strange problem right now. Whenever my character equips a body armor or clothes (vanilla armor/clothes) she kind of gets bug eyes, kind of like her eyeballs get bigger or something. Her facial expression also changes momentarily. You can even see the change in her eyes right at the moment when you equip the armor (in the inventory screen). I have two different Skyrim setups with different set of mods but both seem to have this issue, but in one of them it's a bit more apparent. I'm not sure if this is a mod issue or not, it probably is. I wonder if someone can verify that in their own game, see if it also happens in their game or not.

[endgameaddiction]

I have never had that happen, nor have I ever heard anyone else have that kind of problem. Have you tried moving the plugin for that mod to the bottom and see if that fixes it?

[bjornk]

It seems the problem often shows up when my char equips an armor while she has an expression on her face, other times it only momentarily interrupts blinking which isn't a problem. This must be either a script or a SKSE DLL file (or both) that interferes with the equipping action and it wouldn't matter moving them up or down in the load order, they'd still work the same way until they are completely disabled. Currently the #1 suspect is Papyrus Extender which is required by another mod I use. It's a SKSE plugin (DLL) as well as a script file and it does have a fair amount of functions that deal with face and head, although I'm not sure if they'd run without being called, but they might. For the moment I cannot think of anything else that may interfere with the head or the eyes or the facial expression. Anyways, I'll let you know if I can find the culprit.

[bjornk]

UPDATE:

First off, this problem has nothing to do with the mod(s) I mentioned earlier and it looks like I only get these bug eyes when other NPCs are around (in Whiterun for instance), it doesn't happen when alone in a cell. Could this be an issue caused by children mods, such as RS Children? Cause when I tested it early in the morning (around 6-7AM) it didn't happen. It only happened after the child NPCs started wandering around in WR. Here's a screenshot comparison to show you the issue I'm talking about...

 

My conclusion is that if I equip another armor or clothing when children are around my character gets these bug eyes. Any ideas how to fix it?

I vaguely recall that I have encountered a similar bug before with children mods (RS children) that caused an eye glitch but only when you load a game in a cell with children, this one is a bit different.

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by bjornk

[bjornk]

UPDATE:

Found the culprit. I was right, it's caused by a children mod, though it's not RS Children,  Children + Soul Gems causes it. My character has a child in WR who starts running around at 08:00 AM. If I equip or unequip the armor/clothes on my character when this child is around, my char gets the eye glitch. If I disable this child and do the same... yep, NO eye glitch. The existence of other (vanilla) children in WR doesn't seem to affect it, so RS Children is most likely harmless.

I still don't know what the fuck this mod does and how this child who's controlled by this mod manages to affect my character's eyes. As I've told you, I have had similar eye issues with this mod before, and this is a new one. Most likely one of its scripts trying to update the eyes of the children fucks things up. I'll have a look at its scripts now.

By the way, I'm pretty sure your character's facial expression would change or gets interrupted if you equip or unequip a body armor while having an expression on her/his face. This is most likely NOT related to the eye problem I'm currently having and it fixes itself anyway, so two different things.

Edited July 11, 2021 by bjornk

[bjornk]

UPDATE:

LOL, while looking at the scripts I came across my old comments and I've realized that it was me who fixed the previous problems with this fucking mod and then recompiled its scripts, looks like it's got another problem to fix now...

I've fixed the scripts for pretty much all LL mods that I currently use and I'm really sick and tired of this bullshit. Skyrim is already a shitty game and it becomes even more buggier and shittier with the garbage mods of LL, most of them are just retarded juvenile shit anyways...

Edited July 11, 2021 by bjornk

[bjornk]

There's still the question why or how equipping/unequipping a body armor (slot 52) triggers this glitch. Perhaps I have some other mod that interferes with equipping action, such as DD. This children + soul gems mod uses QueueNiNodeUpdate on children to update the appearance of children (eyes, hair, clothes) and I wonder what could possibly interfere with it.

The issue is definitely caused by the Children+Soulgem mod, or rather its "RS Children" compatibility module/feature, but it may be the result of a conflict with another mod, which is why I've never encountered this glitch before. The problem goes away when I disabled the children from this mod using the console OR when I turned off the RS Children compatibility feature (but then the children look weird with double hair and stuff).

[bjornk]

UPDATE

Yep, just as I expected it's a conflict with Devious Devices, which has a setting as "Use QueueNiNode" which was enabled in my game to prevent multiple equipping sounds and when it's enabled, it seems to interfere with the QueueNiNodeUpdates or rather forces an update when you equip an armor/clothing in the inventory screen. So the reason why this eye glitch -caused by Children+Soulgems- is triggered whenever I equip/unequip an armor is basically a conflict with DD. Disabling "Use QueueNiNode" stops the glitch from happening, but then you start to multiple equipping sounds which is very annoying.

I can turn off the RS Children compatibility of Children+Soulgems to get rid of this issue, but then I would have to re-edit the appearances of children in this mod. I can also edit its scripts to get rid of the QueueNiNodeUpdates but then it would break the mod. I've never really used DD in any serious playthrough, as find it super unimmersive and stupid, but there are a few mods that I'd like to try which require DD, so I have to keep it for the time being. Don't know, guess I'll have to live with bug eyes.

By the way, the actual problem which causes the eye glitch to occur in the Children+Soulgems mod with its RS Children is still there, everything I've talked about are just workarounds to avoid it. Don't know, that mod probably messes with something it shouldn't but I don't wanna waste my time trying to figure it out. It's a shit mod, I keep it as it doesn't have any better alternative.

Edited July 11, 2021 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

You should make a 'fix it' tutorial.

[bjornk]

@Kendo 2 Unfortunately I haven't actually been able to fix this one. It's a really complicated thing to figure out, due to mod interactions/conflicts. I still don't know what actually is going on with the eyes. Does the glitch cause the eyes to get bigger (setscale?) or is something pushing them apart? Maybe it's the head mesh, or the hair, or the skeleton? Really hard to tell. So far I have found out which mod seemingly causes it and what triggers it, but not actually *why* it is happening.

The existence of a child NPC from C&SG mod in the same cell as my character creates this glitch. Most likely caused by a script running on this child which tries to update the child's appearance but also messes with my char. In theory, a female Breton character should not have any shared head/body part or a common skeleton with a Nord child, and her existence should not affect my character at all, but it somehow does. Do I have another mod that changes this, such as ECE? I don't know. I did check the head parts for the child in the plugin she's defined (both as an NPC and as a race) and they all seemed normal and specific to children. TBH, I have run out of ideas at this point.

By the way, disabling "Use QueueNiNode" option in DD prevents this glitch from triggering when you equip/unequip armor in the inventory screen, but that's ALL it does. It doesn't actually fix anything, and another call to QueueNiNodeUpdate would most likely reintroduce the glitch. I've already tried commenting out all the calls to QueueNiNodeUpdate in this mod's scripts to see if it'd change anything and it did not. So the update scripts must be doing something else that causes this. I've spent half the day trying to fix this shit, what a waste of time.

Edited July 11, 2021 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

45 minutes ago, bjornk said:

Maybe it's the head mesh, or the hair, or the skeleton? Really hard to tell. So far I have found out which mod seemingly causes it and what triggers it, but not actually *why* it is happening.

Try this: go into actors\character\character assets and hide any files with 'femalehead' on them.  Nifs, tris. whatever.  Just put them in a new folder so the game can't find them.  After that load the game and see what happens.  The files you hid are in the game's BSAs anyway so not a big deal.

What I suspect; somewhere along the way you installed a mod that changes dlls required for proper face gen.  Or something could have been added that does absolutely nothing (like BS and those empty tri files added for hands, feet, etc.)  The game tries to read that shit, it can't or there's nothing to read when there should be and it throws a fit.

If hiding the files doesn't fix it then you know for a fact it's not them and can put them back; no harm done.

[bjornk]

12 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

Try this: go into actors\character\character assets and hide any files with 'femalehead' on them.  Nifs, tris. whatever.  Just put them in a new folder so the game can't find them.  After that load the game and see what happens.  The files you hid are in the game's BSAs anyway so not a big deal.

Unfortunately, that's not something I can possibly try, since I use a mod manager (MO) and that folder is put together in runtime as a virtual folder and there are a lot of different mods contribute to it.

 

[Kendo 2]

3 hours ago, bjornk said:

Unfortunately, that's not something I can possibly try, since I use a mod manager (MO) and that folder is put together in runtime as a virtual folder and there are a lot of different mods contribute to it.

Sounds like you're fucked then.

[bjornk]

To summarize the issue:

Problem:
Bug eyes or distorted eyeballs on the player character when an armor/clothes is equipped or unequipped.

Conditions:
1. Use QueueNiNode is enabled on Devious Devices Integration MCM and no item hider slot is selected.
2. A child from Children+SoulGemsRSChildren.esp is around in the same cell.

Notes:
The issue is consistently reproducible in a small cell with no other NPCs by simply spawning one of the children from the mod by using the console command 'player.placeatme'.

Trigger:
Equipping or unequipping a body armor or clothes (slot 52?) results in bug eyes on the player character.

Workarounds: Each of these options are known to work (i.e. lets you avoid the issue) but they don't really fix anything.

1. Disable Use QueueNiNode and use a slot for item hider on DDi MCM. (Con: Causes multiple equipping sounds)
2. Disable the Children+SoulGemsRSChildren.esp plugin. (Con: Player's children will turn into vanilla potato heads)
3. Do not change armor when a child from the plugin is around. (Duh!)
4. Disable the child and then change the armor, then enable it again, or just kill the brat and be done with it, yes, killing it works just as well.
5. Uninstall Devious Devices, you basically remove what triggers the issue.

Known not to work:
1. Modifying or disabling scripts from Children+SoulGemsRSChildren.esp. The issue is most likely caused by the plugins themselves.

Ideas:

Both Children+SoulGemsRSChildren as well as RSChildren itself uses adult assets (eyes, hair, mouth etc) on the children NPCs and they also turn them into "playable" characters, which may be the cause of this problem. Perhaps the plugin can be modified so that they use their own isolated assets completely. A copy of adult assets, e.g. NIF and TRI files can be added into the mod folder.

This may also be a Devious Devices issue as well. What exactly does it do when "Use QueueNiNode" is enabled to trigger this?

Edited July 13, 2021 by bjornk

[bjornk]

1 hour ago, Kendo 2 said:

Sounds like you're fucked then.

Thing is, it didn't actually happen when I tried it on my other Skyrim setup (about 70% same mods running in a different MO as well as same DD settings), most likely because I installed DD way later in that playthrough. But when I started a new game with the same setup, (DD is now in the game right from the start) I get the same problem, which possibly means that the problem wasn't caused by something I've added later on, it's always been there waiting to show up since I installed DD.

[bjornk]

UPDATE WITH A FIX:

2 hours ago, bjornk said:

Ideas:

Both Children+SoulGemsRSChildren as well as RSChildren itself uses adult assets (eyes, hair, mouth etc) on the children NPCs and they also turn them into "playable" characters, which may be the cause of this problem. Perhaps the plugin can be modified so that they use their own isolated assets completely. A copy of adult assets, e.g. NIF and TRI files can be added into the mod folder.

This may also be a Devious Devices issue as well. What exactly does it do when "Use QueueNiNode" is enabled to trigger this?

Just as I described here, I have isolated pretty much all the eye assets that Children+SoulGemsRSChildren use and doing that have seemingly fixed the problem. Here's what I did:

1. Copied the eye related nif and tri files shown below (from various other mods) into meshes\actors\character\ranaline\character assets which I created inside the mod folder.
   
   
    
2. Opened Children+SoulGemsRSChildren.esp in TESVEdit and made sure all eye related records in head parts section point to the files in the new folder. Editing the first few that was shown in the screenshot below was enough to get rid of my problem, but just in case the player char is an Elf, an Argonian or a Khajiit, I edited their associated records as well.
   
   
   
   And these are the sections in each record that need to be changed:
   
   
    

Mind you, equipping/unequipping armor still makes my char's eyes twitch momentarily, which is most likely caused by QueueNiNode call, but she no longer gets bug eyes or anything permanent. This is most likely a design issue with this particular mod. QueueNiNode probably does some kind of rescaling on the eye assets when it's called, which in turn causes this problem. There may be a few other ways to fix this, such as deleting the form lists that reference these records but I haven't tried it. Anyways, hopefully this is the last time I've dealt with this issue.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by bjornk

[Kendo 2]

Thinking back I had a similar issue with NiOverRide and high heels; equip/uneqip them in 3rd person and my toon would stop using face animations, even the vanilla combat ones.  Staying in first person sorta 'fixed' it I guess but I play in 3rd person 99% of the time.

[bjornk]

@Kendo 2 DD requires NiOverRide for high heels which is, by the way, an SKSE plugin and most likely uses QueueNiNodeUpdate which is also a SKSE function. A mod I use, which is called "Player Voicesets", lets your character say things as well as change their expressions while saying it, so it was easy for me to test and see what happens to the facial expression when changing armor. People who play the game in 1st person all the time may never notice things like these, even when they use the same set of mods and been affected by the same issues.

[bjornk]

Just a quick update about this issue, while the "fix" I posted above does indeed fix this problem, it wasn't a complete solution, it only fixes it for the child NPCs that are defined in Children+SoulGemsRSChildren plugin and not for the whole game, because the problem here actually originates from the RSChildren plugin. By that I mean, Children+SoulGemsRSChildren defines its own NPCs by using RSChildren plugin and assets, but there are other child NPCs in the game, either vanilla children or from another mod that you may have, that are also modified or rather affected by RSChildren. So, if you want this problem fixed for your entire mod setup, you have to start fixing it in RSChildren first as I described in the fix above, and then fix every other mod you have that contains any other "head part" definition that uses adult assets. Otherwise, every time a child is spawned or loaded in the same cell as the PC, this problem is very likely to reappear.

TLDR:

The assets used in the head-parts in RSChildren.esm also need to be modified, along with Children+SoulGemsRSChildren.esp, as described in "the fix" post.

 

 

[bjornk]

An easy way to check whether or not a child NPC is using adult assets (eyes, hair etc.) in a particular mod is by applying TES5Edit scripts that lists its assets (meshes etc.). For instance, you can load up RSkyrimChildren.esm in TES5Edit and then go to the "Head Part" section, right click on the section title and choose "Apply Script" and then either choose the "List used meshes" script or the "Output used assets filenames" (more detailed), both will display the file names with paths to the assets used. You can use this info to create a separate copy of missing vanilla assets into the mod's "meshes" folder. If you do it correctly, there shouldn't be any entry that points to actors\character\character assets\ folder, instead they should all point to a separate folder such as actors\character\ranaline\character assets\ as I did in the example above. Note that you may replace ".nif" with ".tri" in the script source, to get a list of the TRI files used instead of NIFs.

To batch modify folder/path names in TES5Edit, you can apply the "Replace model file name" script to either individual records in Head Part or on the entire section, by changing its parameters as shown below:

Let's say you wish to change A to B:

A: Actors\Character\Character Assets\Hair\Elf\Female\Hair01.nif

B: actors\character\ranaline\Character Assets\Hair\Elf\Female\Hair01.nif

This is how you modify the script:

const
  sReplaceWhat = 'Actors\Character\'; // replace what substring
  sReplaceWith = 'actors\character\ranaline\'; // replace with substring
 

If you want to change the TRI file path name with this script you can modify the third parameter as below:

sModelElements = 'Model\MODL,Male world model\MOD2,Female world model\MOD3,Female world model\MOD4,Male 1st Person\MOD4,Female 1st Person\MOD5,Parts\Part\NAM1';

You basically add 'Parts\Part\NAM1' to the end of list sections that will be searched.

Edited July 20, 2021 by bjornk

[bjornk]

The reason why I posted an update about the issue was because I had noticed that it reappeared again yesterday while playing around a new mod that added some new NPCs, including some children, which were (affected by) RSChildren. And after making the changes I mentioned above, I now have completely isolated the assets (various meshes for eyes, hair, mouth etc.) that were previously shared between the adult NPCs (incl. the PC) and children. Not surprisingly, the problem has now completely disappeared.

As I have speculated before, the issue is probably caused by some problematic scaling operation on these assets whenever the game is loaded (either from a save or by fast traveling to a location that hasn't already been cached) or when QueueNiNodeUpdate is called when equipping/unequipping body armor. Since there is a difference between adults and children in terms of size (0.95+ vs 0.8), which is somewhat significant, it probably creates an issue when their body parts that use the same assets are dynamically scaled. It wouldn't happen with the unmodified vanilla children, because they use their own assets and don't share anything with adult NPCs, unlike what RSChildren does.

[Nessa]

Good info! It's always interesting what can cause issues in Skyrim!! (I think maybe more interesting than the game itself! )