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I've been playing around with racemenu a lot lately and I find it to be more fun than the actual game lol. I really didn't know how to morph faces that actually looks like a human being(still not good). So I tried the presets uploaded on this site but were also very lacking for my standards. So I search online to look at various faces and observed facial proportions. Even after that, when I tried to morph faces in race menu, I found it to be very limiting since there were face parts i could do nothing about(smoothing tool is not a good tool in my opinion).
So where do I start if I want to edit each face mesh parts outside of the game and apply it on my char or npc? There seems to be a lot of information online, but where would noob start?
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A lot of it ends up being trial and error. There have been times, i have spent about 2 hours each night for an entire week editing in game. I do all of my editing in game because you can see how everything is going to look in real time, with ENB, and all the games lighting shaders on your character. I've heard there are ways to edit outside the game, but i've never been interested in doing that so I can't help with suggestions there.
You can also try and edit the normal face maps yourself and add wrinkles and laugh lines in to see if that changes your character. The normal maps are what control all that, and as I have said, they are what really end up creating the face. Normal maps are the files that end in; msn.dds in your texture folders.
If you decide to edit DDS files, i prefer photoshop and when i save them, i do so as 8.8.8.8 RGB files.
Another huge thing is lighting itself, there currently is no software or hardware capable of rendering a real human face that when displayed we wouldn't be able to tell the difference that it is part of a mesh, or a real persons picture. The resolution, in-game lighting shaders, and more just are not sophisticated enough. If i would have to guess, i would say we are about 20 years away from having game characters look photorealistic where we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and a real person. Because of that, you will always feel that your character is slightly off from being "human"
I hope i make myself clear. And I don't know about editing outside the game.
In regards to getting started sculpting faces. The normal map files that come with skin textures are in essence what really makes the difference in the face.You could have the same preset but try out many different face normal maps and each one would look like a different person.
When I sculpt a face I usually start with a reference such as a real photo.Now I'm not trying to copy that persons look but I am copying things like bone structure.I would say start with a photo of someone and try to mimic the same face in racemenu.I usually start with the sliders and get everything close to where I want them.Then I go into the sculpt tab and start editing the mesh points. This part is not something to rush through and can become quite tedious.Use a small radius and very light amounts.Raise areas and lower areas.Smoothing should be used at the very end and I use a very low strength and go over each area of the face little by little.
It takes time and a lot of practice.But remember every persons face is unique and in game characters are no different. Edit and save lots during the sculpting so you can easily go back in case you edit to far and don't like the results.
Reading up on some art lessons about drawing the human face can also come in quite handy since that is essentially what you are doing.