It's patch day! Please be patient as modders test and update their mods. You can see my progress wrt my own mods here.
This mod was already working with Patch 7, but just got an update to fix a bug with his ears not being hidden with helmets. I also added a new .pak version of the mod; it's the same updated model, just in .pak form instead of loose files. Enjoy!
vyrelis and I have been working this out in DMs, and after a lot of experimenting, I think we've figured out what ACTUALLY makes this fix work, and it is technically levels of detail/LODs, just not the ones I originally thought.
She had a theory we've been testing over the past couple days, and she ended up being correct!! Turns out the process of importing/exporting head meshes into Blender does make them less expressive in general, for a very specific reason: custom heads made using Blender seem to use the medium animation level of detail setting,no matter what you do. It's just less noticeable because they still use the wrinkle map for high detail animations.
Importing a head into Blender, editing it, and exporting it forces that model to use medium levels of animation detail. Importing a head into Blender without editing it beyond re-weighting the ears forces it to use medium levels of animation detail. Importing a head into Blender and making no changes, not even re-weighting the ears, just importing and immediately exporting it, still makes it use medium levels of animation detail. Changing the animation level of detail in video settings won't fix it, they still only use the medium detail level animations (but lowering that setting gets rid of the wrinkle map). I tried experimenting with export settings, importing .GR2s vs extracted .dae files, trying it with different heads, experimenting with the animation level of detail setting in the game with or without custom heads, etc. Still nothing—no matter what, custom heads were still only able to use the animations for the medium animation LOD setting, just with a more detailed wrinkle map. At one point while testing, I replaced the wrinkle maps for the models I was using with a blank texture, and the result when testing a custom model on high animation LOD was identical to setting animation LOD to medium in an unmodded game. It seems like the medium animation LOD setting also prevents models from using a wrinkle map, which custom heads are not affected by if the animation LOD setting is still set to high.EDIT: after further testing, it doesn't seem like it gets rid of it entirely, so much as it softens it to the point it's often not visible. Custom heads still use the high detail version of the wrinkle map animations, though. This seems to be a pervasive issue that could be affecting a lot of custom heads, that may need be double-checked for this issue too.
I'm guessing this is actually why other mods making minor changes to Astarion's mesh inadvertently fixed the grinch face as well, and that, again, this is a pervasive issue that could be affecting a lot of other custom heads. It's certainly the case for the De-Grinchifier mesh, and all the ones I tested with. I don't know what's causing it, and I don't know how to fix it yet. I'm hoping that by pointing out the issue the modding community as a whole can start to work on solutions.
How does this actually affect the De-Grinchifier mod, though?
It turns out the grinch face is only an issue when animation levels of detail are set to high, and that's why setting graphics settings to medium fixes it. Technically, animation LOD is the only setting you need to change to fix it, even without a mod, but doing so minimizes his wrinkle map. This mod seems to be a happy middle ground between the two—preserving his high detail wrinkle map (which, fun fact: he shares with Shadowheart and a lot of other female characters in the game) while having his model use the medium level of animation detail that prevents the grinch face. It makes him a bit less expressive, but thankfully not to the extent of other characters on medium animation detail. Which version of his animations you prefer is up to you. And if you prefer the medium detail animations, you can now have those, and his original wrinkles, without affecting any other characters.
Wait, so did his model LODs do anything?
Maybe not! I'm not sure if there is actually a difference in adding them anymore, or if I just imagined there were in a haze of stress and sleep deprivation. The response to this mod has been pretty overwhelming, to say the least. On further testing I actually can't tell if there's much of a difference between adding those LODs to his model and not doing so—the actual reason my original fix seems to work might just be because of the issues with animation detail settings and custom models. To clarify, though, the issue is essentially levels of detail, just not in the way I originally thought. It's animation LODs, if not his model LODs.
Is grinchstarion actually a bug?
Honestly, I've got no idea. If you want my actual opinion, I think the fact he looks so drastically different between medium and high animation LOD settings when other characters don't is probably an indicator of a graphical bug—just maybe not one Larian minds. They can see the same model we do, and they've not changed it for this long, so maybe the grinch face is what they intended.
I will say there are a bunch of issues throughout the game that are fixed by switching the animation LOD setting from high to medium, though, including animation stuttering, dialogue desynching, and warped expressions in other characters; it doesn't just affect him. You can see some examples of the issues with high-detail animations in another video of mine here (although, be wary, the video contains Act 2 spoilers):
I am not going to make a comparison video with this scene, because editing the original gave me a literal, actual migraine from how buggy it was—bugs that, when I tested it out yesterday comparing the animation detail settings, were actually improved by a lot. If you'd like to see the differences yourself, you can trigger this specific scene by investigating the "strange noises" in Moonrise Towers. For full transparency's sake, though, the issues could potentially be caused by my PC just not being able to handle that particular scene, so, hm.
The fact the grinch face changes so dramatically between high and medium animation detail settings still strikes me as a graphical bug, though, especially since it seems to mostly be that one expression that's affected so much. Not many other characters seem to have that issue, as well; he's one of the only characters with such obvious differences. For people who were having trouble seeing differences, though, the reason for that may be because the biggest change between animation detail settings does seem to be that one expression, which is one particular animation rig I'm going to talk a little more about later.
It's possible that one rig itself is bugged on higher animation detail settings, and my mod ended up bypassing that by having his model use the medium detail animations instead. Who can say, though. I am not going to speak for Larian or their intentions, I'm just giving you my thoughts on the matter.
EDIT: Actually, after further testing and comparing animation detail settings, the more I'm convinced that rig really should not look so different between animation detail settings. For most other characters and most of his own expressions besides that one, the changes can actually be really subtle, making the expressions a bit less extreme, making them blink a bit less, and minimizing the wrinkle map—nobody else has their entire face change so dramatically. If I had to take a guess as to why it happens for him, it may be because they didn't update that rig for his new model in the full release game (and why changing that setting makes him look much more like his EA self), but don't quote me on that. That's just my theory at the moment.
But, because that expression looks so different between animation detail settings, he's actually a really good litmus test for whether any fix for custom head animations will work. Other heads are still affected by the issue, but that one expression of his is the most obvious and dramatic. Grinchstarion may actually be a blessing to anyone looking to solve what seems to be a pretty pervasive issue with custom head models, which is just incredible, honestly. Let's all do our best to re-grinch him (and thank him for all his hard work).
What happens if Larian fixes it?
Please for the love of g-d at this point I personally hope they never do. I hope they never say a thing about it, either—I'd much, much, much rather they work on other things, like fixing things for Wyll, or at least communicating with us and letting us know something's coming for him. The last thing I want them to do is rush an update for Wyll, but I am so desperate to know they're working on something for him, at least. There are bigger things to worry about than grinch face. Please, don't report it to Larian on behalf of my mod; if you want a fix, you've already got one here.
If you're going to give Larian feedback on behalf of anything I've done, please, just, ask for more content for Wyll instead (I, at least, would very much appreciate that).
If they do ever change it, though, I've got all the files related to Astarion's original head model, textures, animation rigs, and material/animation banks as of Patch 6 - Hotfix 20 backed up, and I've uploaded them for others to back them up, too. You can find a .zip file with all of them on the downloads page, under Miscellaneous Files. I've also tested whether just extracting the models from the game causes them to lose the animation detail settings, but that doesn't seem to be the case—it really does seem to be Blender that's the issue. Putting Astarion's model extracted straight from the game with BG3 Modder's Multitool into the folder his replacement mesh goes resulted in zero changes from the vanilla game—which is what we'd want to have happen. It's not the extraction process that's the issue, thankfully.
I also ended up finding the original grinch face expression rig while I was testing, which you should prioritize backing up if you want to hold onto it (and should try restoring from the backup if they change it). The actual grinch face rig is this file right here:
That rig is included in the .zip file, along with all other files I could find relating to his head model and expressions.
I haven't had much luck actually importing and troubleshooting the animation, and I'm far too tired and fried to poke at it any more, but I can confirm that is the actual rig for it (substituting that rig with a different one replaces it in the game, so it really is that one).
And also, if Larian ends up changing it themselves, please don't yell at me. I talked about this on Twitter, but literally all I wanted to do with this mod was figure out why setting graphics settings to medium fixed the grinch face. I like solving little tech problems, and this seemed to be one. And when the little tweak I made seemed to fix it, I thought I'd share that. I did not make this mod to make him "look better," all I wanted to do was fix a bug. What it seems I actually may have done, though, is stumble on a pervasive issue with custom head modding, that inadvertently ended up implementing the same fix that setting animation details to medium does (just with more of his original face lines, because it keeps the high detail wrinkle map).
And with the amount of people mad at me over this, it seems more people prefer the grinch face than not—to the extent you're willing to yell at a stranger over it. If Larian ever fixes it themselves, I doubt it would be due to fan request. Please stop saying I don't understand his story/I'm disrespecting the creators' original vision/etc; a lot of people have been saying really awful things and making assumptions about me personally over this and I ask you all, kindly, to stop. Please. The comments about me "disrespecting the creators' original vision"/etc are especially bizarre, considering I've been very clear I made no changes to the mesh beyond adding LODs, and also what this mod actually seems to do is just, have him use one set of his animations—that are already in the game—instead of another. I did not make any of the animations the replacement mesh uses, Larian did. All my mod does is enable them for him, without having to change the graphics settings for other characters, and lets him keep his face lines in the process.
Please do not let yourself get so attached to grinch memes that you will yell at real people over it. I genuinely cannot believe I have to say that.
Do you have screenshots/video showing the differences between custom models and medium animation LOD in the unmodded game?
Considering they're identical with the exception of custom models still having the high detail wrinkle map, comparison images and videos won't really help; I'm not sure how to truly convey what's going on without you all testing it for yourself. Me and my younger sibling have put together some vanilla saves for you all to hopefully be able to compare a little easier (they've never used mods, so I asked them to help me out in getting some truly guaranteed vanilla saves for you), EDIT: which have now been uploaded under "Miscellaneous Files." The end of the Nautiloid tutorial level, when you reach the controls for the helm, is also pretty good point of reference to be able to tell the differences. Save before you reach the controls, and then try testing the cutscene with and without a custom model, while changing the animation level of detail in video settings. Replacing the wrinkle map for the model you're using with a blank one will help you see the differences (or lack thereof) a bit better, too.
Again, hopefully with more people aware of the problem, the modding community as a whole can start looking for solutions. Because again, I don't think this issue is only affecting my meshes, and other modders may want to double-check their own.
I do sincerely apologize for misattributing the cause of the issue at first—and thank you very much again to vyrelis for helping troubleshoot the actual cause with me!!
I really hope this long-winded explanation makes sense; I'll do my best to answer any questions if people have them.
Oh damn! I do like Grinchstarion LOL, but I've sworn blind this whole time that most custom heads' face animations had less nuance and seemed less naturalistic. I'd wondered if the PC wasn't mo-capped, since they don't talk.
Thank you both for uncovering this! Major appreciation! Could there be a way to fix it for existing head mods?
EDIT:vyrelis and I have now worked out the issue, see the above stickied post for more information! OK SO, I think I was a little hasty in saying the issue is due to missing LODs!!! Please don't report this as a bug to Larian until I can figure out more of what's causing the issue.
It seems like adding the missing LODs isn't the only reason the fix works—importing/exporting from blender may actually cause custom heads to be less expressive, even though adding the missing LODs does make a difference as well (and deleting them does add back some of the grinchiness). I'm not entirely sure what's going on, and I'm going to do some more experimenting to figure out how what I did Actually works (and if there's a way to bring back that expressiveness with the tools I have). I sincerely apologize for saying it was due to the missing LODs; atm I don't think that's the only thing going on!!!
I was wondering, if Astarion's modded face - when put through Blender - always uses medium animation detail level, can we replace it with high animation detail level by just renaming? As in, rename the high one to have the medium's name, so the modded face can retain high animation detail level while it "thinks" it's using the medium. I imagine this could be done in some lsf/lsx file, since those should be the ones that determine what the face is using. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, it's a bit tricky
Ah so, the animations in the game, aren't actually in separate files according to high/medium/low animation detail from what I can tell! I've been trying to find what controls the animation LoD settings since we figured out the issue, but haven't had much luck yet. It probably won't be as simple as finding the right animations and renaming them, though.
The closest I've come to an answer so far was actually by downloading a free trial of Maya, which, iirc is the program Larian uses. And there's a few things I figured out while I had said free trial, mainly that when you import a .GR2 head mesh extracted straight from the game into Maya, it looks like this:
Which uh. Is something! A note: I didn't reweight the ears at all. They were still attached to the head on import to Maya, which is not something that happens when importing a model to Blender. And another note: this giant purple ball from...what I could tell when I had access to the program is actually meant to be joints in the rig, that were potentially scaled up a bit too far (?) I'm...gonna be honest, I don't know much about Maya yet. I'd like to learn more about it, but I'm a little lost atm. If anyone has any insights they'd be very appreciated!!!
...Whatever happened with the original model, though, is way worse when you import a mesh that's been run through Blender. Doing so gave me...Whatever This Is:
...Again, I am not very familiar with this program yet. But I think if your rig explodes into a dense purple ball that completely engulfs the original mesh, this is probably not good!
That's as far as I was able to get before the free trial ran out, though 😅. (The trial itself lasts a month, I just was too busy to look into it much...) However, just, based on this, I have a feeling the reason Blender meshes are locked into the medium animation detail setting is because of the rigs for the heads themselves, and potentially how Blender handles them vs how Maya does. As to how to fix this or why, I've got no clue, but hopefully someone else will find this information helpful!
(Sorry for rambling a bit in this reply! I've been meaning to bring the stuff about the rigs up for a while but kept forgetting, and thought it might be good to include it while we're looking into solutions 😅 I hope it's useful! And if not, then at least I hope it's interesting? Hm.)
The very fact that ears stay where they're supposed to be when the head is imported into Maya says a lot about the situation, let alone the purple ball thing. I would love to look into this but it took me a lot of time to learn just Blender (and I'm still only at editing, not creating new stuff), and this free trial isn't enough time for me to dig into it. (and holy crap, Maya is expensive, way too much for my amateurish peasantness) Maybe, hopefully, Larian would provide modding tools for us to properly edit meshes without harming animation rigs? 🤞
It bugs the Hells outta me how only Astarion's head has such a vivid transition in animation detail from high to medium. I made a subtle head edit for him and his expressions aren't the same anymore 😭 Look at my boy:
Spoiler:
Show
I mean, it's still good imho, but it's not that something that high level animation detail has. It's not just about the grinch smile; his face is overall somehow more loose, it loses that signature tight evil smirk and squint, which for me is a part of his identity.
As for digging, I have found something called "Animation Waterfall" in the lsf.lsx file under Visual Bank and I'm not sure what it is, there are four of them: <node id="AnimationSetOverrides"> <attribute id="PairElement1" type="guid" value="b6aa23c3-c96d-42d5-8ffa-8d441d18faa7" /> <attribute id="PairElement2" type="FixedString" value="f4ead328-66b0-35c8-4c30-319ce28fa36f" /> <attribute id="strAnimationSetOverrideType" type="int32" value="0" /> </node> <node id="AnimationWaterfall"> <attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="a6289ad6-3082-e660-2a09-4805aa349c78" /> </node> <node id="AnimationWaterfall"> <attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="f4a56a54-9552-4178-139f-a229a7a6dc57" /> </node> <node id="AnimationWaterfall"> <attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="29b22fc6-57ee-9809-ab82-86cb1bf1aed6" /> </node> <node id="AnimationWaterfall"> <attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="c465d4f0-e0b8-6f59-1515-8ee33a15669e" /> </node> Maybe it's something unrelated, but I thought it might be worth pointing out.
I've discovered exactly why NPC faces don't use high level animations: their LOD 0 head mesh isn't connected (morphed) to the bone group blendshape_base (and all the bones in that group, which end with _driver), and that bone group is responsible for all those wonderful, fine emotes. Also, importing the head into Blender automatically erases bone group gesture_base, which is the parent of the bone gesture_01, and that in turn messes up the entire bone structure in the head model. All of these aren't affecting CC heads, but edited NPC heads are suffering from distorted facial emotes. Even as it is, it still works, and they aren't all that noticeable on most NPCs, but on Astarion the difference is glaring, as we already know.
I reported my findings to all the wrinkly brains of our modding community on Discord, and... we might get an update for the GR2 exporter in a week or so! All hail NoiraFayn, one of our Greater Deities of Modding BG3 🙏✨ How she manages to adjust the clunky Blender according to Maya's functionalities, I'll never know. Godly powers! The fix should (hopefully) address the misaligned and detached bones. Fingers crossed that it also solves the emotes issue! 🤞
OH THAT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!! This is incredible work and so good to hear ;u; Kudos to you and everyone for finally being able to find what's going on!!!! I want to say more but I'm not sure what, but ehfjgkfrgjfkldk I'm just so excited you were able to figure it out, and commend your dedication to finding it so much, congrats!!!! 🎉🌟🌈🌼🌷🎶 Definitely keep me updated wrt the GR2 exporter, so I can update the mod description/explanation here!!!
Okay, potentially dumb question time: I have loved using this mod for my patch 6 games, and I'm trying to make a list of mods I need to keep, update, or remove whenever I decide to update to patch 7. To your knowledge, is this mod now kinda redundant? I know Larian adjusted his mesh and/or expression rigs in patch 7 (thanks to your re-grinchifier which is also incredible jsyk lol), but do you know if they just did the same thing you did for this mod or if they did something else entirely? In other words, would this just be taking up space in my mod list, or is there still a benefit to keeping this mod? Good God I hope that makes sense.. it's too early and I haven't had my coffee yet lol
They did something else entirely! It seems like they may have re-weighted the mesh a little, while carrying most of the De-Grinching out by editing the expression rigs he's using in different scenes. This means the expression rigs themselves do seem to be functioning a bit better than before, but lean more towards the original expressions than not! And the dialog itself has been edited to swap in different expressions. You can try testing with both the vanilla game and the De-Grinchifier to see what you prefer, but they don't do the same thing! (Although, I have noticed the De-Grinchifier looks a little different in Patch 7 too, probably because of the updated rigs. Hm...)
There's is one major benefit to the De-Grinchifier that I'm not sure Patch 7 covers yet. And it's that the De-Grinchifier smooths out lipsync, which was pretty broken for him before. But Patch 7 might've fixed the same thing! I haven't tested that much yet, but I'm really hoping it did, actually; the broken lipsync is a pretty big accessibility issue for people who need to lipread! But, again, if that's something you need, I'd recommend trying both the vanilla version and the De-Grinchifier to see what you prefer.
I got this mod because of TheSnarkUrge's comment and I REALLY wanted to second it. I personally love his dumb grinchy smile. Adore it. But when TheSnarkUrge said it improved the lip movement overall.... I had to check it out. I've only played on high LOD and I mostly just talk to Astarion (maybe it's correct to say I pay more attention more when Astarion is talking) so I never noticed that he has particularly bad lipsync, I kinda just assumed everyone's was a little bit... off. A little stiff.
I just started a fresh playthrough, my boy hasn't even smiled at me yet, so grinch smiles aside I'm already pleased with the movement quality overall with this mod. It's not night and day or anything, but it is genuinely better. In my heart he still has grinch in his smirk, but it's something that happens under certain circumstances. Like when he's trying not to laugh. Regardless, the mod gets an easy thumbs up from me, a Grinch Astarion Lover. I don't really get why the mod is that divisive, but I hope it continues to do well and Modder doesn't have to deal with any more stress inducing people.
okay so i love this!! my only question is I already use another mod that has a folder called "generated" in the data folder and i do not want to replace those files. can i rename this "generated" folder to a different name so they can both go in the bg3 data folder??
The files need to go in that specific folder in order to properly override the original head model, but it won't override any of your existing files unless you already have a head replacement for Astarion! And if you do, this mod unfortunately won't be compatible with it. But you don't need to rename the folder at all! Your computer will also give you a warning if you're in any danger of overwriting files, and if it does, you can just select the option to skip overwriting the file. But, just in case, you can also make a copy of your Generated folder and put it elsewhere on your computer for safekeeping! If you don't get a warning about a file being overwritten when installing the mod, you've installed it properly, with nothing else being lost in the process.
(I hope that explanation makes sense, I'm pretty sleep deprived 😅 Let me know if you have any questions!!)
UGH. Ok, I finally broke down and got this mod, even though the grinch face amused the hell out of me. I was keeping an eye on it already because I like this creator's other mods, and also I had a thought that this might actually fix a graphical bug I've been getting on Astarion. Well, sadly, it didn't fix the bug. But I was really quite happy with the mod anyways, so I've kept it. And after finally getting the tiefling party romance scene with him (where the full benefit of this mod is pretty well displayed), I finally realized I have to leave a review. Astarion still looks like the grinch. Well, maybe more the cat from that meme with the knife... or any number of "Khajit has wares" memes... the point is, his expressions are still very much his expressions. The only real difference that I've seen is that his mouth lines up with his words much better--and I mean MUCH better. I'm hard of hearing, and while I appreciate that subtitles are a thing, I often find myself lipreading the characters instead, and I always struggled with Astarion because unlike the others, his lips just did not move right. With this mod however, he actually looks like he is saying the words he is supposed to be saying. His cheek movement is also a lot less stiff (I'm guessing the stiffness caused the full on Grinch smirk), and while he still looks like a smarmy bastard who is probably planning on stealing christmas, he doesn't look plastic anymore. Or shot up with botox. So, if you're worried that this will make him less like a Libra (You know he's a Libra), change his features, or reduce how animated his face is (pun intended), fear not: It does none of those things. Magnetuning and vyrelis did a very good job of making this not a mod, but a fix. 10/10, I have absolutely no regrets installing this mod.
Thank you for this mod, I'm no longer dreading that epilogue scene A little note: the ears on this head are never hidden by headwear, they poke through
I love this mod so much. I have been using it for a month and I am no longer thrown off every time Astarion makes that face.
I admit there are some moments the Grinch face would make sense; maybe even be wanted! I suspect these moments are why some people love the Grinch Grin. However, to me it seems there are more moments where he should look the "Charming Charlatan" not the Grinch; and I personally find these moments rather jarring to experience. With this mod installed, I am far more please with his visualization.
To all the haters: this is not the sort of thing you need to yell about. Letting Astarion keep his lips (as he does in every visual setting but high), is not a diversity issue or anything else deserving of outrage. It is a cosmetic preference. If you do not like it, this is the sort of mod you can just scroll right past. There are plenty enough things out there actually deserving of your outrage that you need not waste it on this.
Magnetuning - Thank You! Please keep tinkering because you are doing good work.
Thank you for creating this mod. As someone who didn't get exposed to the 'Grinch' face for the first 150h of gameplay (default is medium LoD), I had a jarring experience with that facial expression when I started using mods and set LoD to high. You have my gratitude for fixing it. With your mod, I can play with mods and still experience Astarion's animations the way I got used to seeing them.
somehow its always a "bug" and not "i actually find my fav ugly but can't admit it"...you guys have seen neil, right? the guy who mocapped all of his animations and expressions? you have seen him make these real faces right?? 😭 just say it's a face mod!! it's ok!!
mocap data is rarely if ever a perfect 1 to 1 with the finished animation and bugs can occur at any point during the production process. and the fact the same animation using the same mocap data can look so radically different between different graphics settings does strike me as a bug. since this mod just incorporates the same fix switching animation level of detail to medium in graphics settings does, and i did not make any of these animations or make any alterations to his model, this isn't really my fix so much as it lets people use one from the game without affecting any other characters.
ah, thank you for trying to help me out, but i really would rather not have any more arguments in my comments section, please 😭!! i don't really think there's a need to tell anyone to grow up. i was trying to keep my own reply informative, but really, yeah, all the mod does is bypass an issue with that rig by having his model use a different set of the same animations, i wasn't trying to beautify him...
Oh my god, twitter fandom freaks flocking to other platforms, pls "your fave" is a bunch of pixels you got your feelings hurt by what a stranger is doing on a bunch of pixels..? Ew
not on twitter, i just scroll backwards thru the new mods so i can continue to fill my game w/ toxic sludge. the entire tone & wording & lack of transparency of the mod really bothered me (and not because of my implied pixels boyfriend), but the mod author has since edited it to be much more fair and accurate so i think that's great! also i was quite high. i am a freak tho.
i mean, i was trying to be as transparent and explain what i thought was happening as best i could at the time 😭 further testing and help from another modder gave us more information about it and how it worked. but i do understand, i don't think my tone landed for everyone initially and i'm glad the rewording helped 😅!!
sorry i have no idea how to reply to a specific person, that was for the above poster 😅 anyhow, apologies for being flippant and rude in my initial comment. i was a total hater on that day for reasons completely outside of bg3 lmao 👍
no worries, i'm really glad we could clear things up!!!! thank you for the apology, and i really hope whatever was bothering you that day resolved ok and you're feeling better now...take care!!! 🎶
As someone who started playing with medium LOD because I didn't use mods and then started a modded run with custom heads and had to switch to high LOD, for me Astarion's canon expressions that I experienced in the vanilla game are the ones that this mod enables for high LOD settings as well. There is no difference between using medium LOD in vanilla game, and using high LOD combined with this mod.
109 comments
This mod was already working with Patch 7, but just got an update to fix a bug with his ears not being hidden with helmets. I also added a new .pak version of the mod; it's the same updated model, just in .pak form instead of loose files. Enjoy!
vyrelis and I have been working this out in DMs, and after a lot of experimenting, I think we've figured out what ACTUALLY makes this fix work, and it is technically levels of detail/LODs, just not the ones I originally thought.
She had a theory we've been testing over the past couple days, and she ended up being correct!! Turns out the process of importing/exporting head meshes into Blender does make them less expressive in general, for a very specific reason: custom heads made using Blender seem to use the medium animation level of detail setting, no matter what you do. It's just less noticeable because they still use the wrinkle map for high detail animations.
Importing a head into Blender, editing it, and exporting it forces that model to use medium levels of animation detail. Importing a head into Blender without editing it beyond re-weighting the ears forces it to use medium levels of animation detail. Importing a head into Blender and making no changes, not even re-weighting the ears, just importing and immediately exporting it, still makes it use medium levels of animation detail. Changing the animation level of detail in video settings won't fix it, they still only use the medium detail level animations (but lowering that setting gets rid of the wrinkle map). I tried experimenting with export settings, importing .GR2s vs extracted .dae files, trying it with different heads, experimenting with the animation level of detail setting in the game with or without custom heads, etc. Still nothing—no matter what, custom heads were still only able to use the animations for the medium animation LOD setting, just with a more detailed wrinkle map. At one point while testing, I replaced the wrinkle maps for the models I was using with a blank texture, and the result when testing a custom model on high animation LOD was identical to setting animation LOD to medium in an unmodded game.
It seems like the medium animation LOD setting also prevents models from using a wrinkle map, which custom heads are not affected by if the animation LOD setting is still set to high.EDIT: after further testing, it doesn't seem like it gets rid of it entirely, so much as it softens it to the point it's often not visible. Custom heads still use the high detail version of the wrinkle map animations, though.This seems to be a pervasive issue that could be affecting a lot of custom heads, that may need be double-checked for this issue too.
I'm guessing this is actually why other mods making minor changes to Astarion's mesh inadvertently fixed the grinch face as well, and that, again, this is a pervasive issue that could be affecting a lot of other custom heads. It's certainly the case for the De-Grinchifier mesh, and all the ones I tested with. I don't know what's causing it, and I don't know how to fix it yet. I'm hoping that by pointing out the issue the modding community as a whole can start to work on solutions.
How does this actually affect the De-Grinchifier mod, though?
It turns out the grinch face is only an issue when animation levels of detail are set to high, and that's why setting graphics settings to medium fixes it. Technically, animation LOD is the only setting you need to change to fix it, even without a mod, but doing so minimizes his wrinkle map. This mod seems to be a happy middle ground between the two—preserving his high detail wrinkle map (which, fun fact: he shares with Shadowheart and a lot of other female characters in the game) while having his model use the medium level of animation detail that prevents the grinch face. It makes him a bit less expressive, but thankfully not to the extent of other characters on medium animation detail. Which version of his animations you prefer is up to you. And if you prefer the medium detail animations, you can now have those, and his original wrinkles, without affecting any other characters.
Wait, so did his model LODs do anything?
Maybe not! I'm not sure if there is actually a difference in adding them anymore, or if I just imagined there were in a haze of stress and sleep deprivation. The response to this mod has been pretty overwhelming, to say the least. On further testing I actually can't tell if there's much of a difference between adding those LODs to his model and not doing so—the actual reason my original fix seems to work might just be because of the issues with animation detail settings and custom models. To clarify, though, the issue is essentially levels of detail, just not in the way I originally thought. It's animation LODs, if not his model LODs.
Is grinchstarion actually a bug?
Honestly, I've got no idea. If you want my actual opinion, I think the fact he looks so drastically different between medium and high animation LOD settings when other characters don't is probably an indicator of a graphical bug—just maybe not one Larian minds. They can see the same model we do, and they've not changed it for this long, so maybe the grinch face is what they intended.
I will say there are a bunch of issues throughout the game that are fixed by switching the animation LOD setting from high to medium, though, including animation stuttering, dialogue desynching, and warped expressions in other characters; it doesn't just affect him. You can see some examples of the issues with high-detail animations in another video of mine here (although, be wary, the video contains Act 2 spoilers):
I am not going to make a comparison video with this scene, because editing the original gave me a literal, actual migraine from how buggy it was—bugs that, when I tested it out yesterday comparing the animation detail settings, were actually improved by a lot. If you'd like to see the differences yourself, you can trigger this specific scene by investigating the "strange noises" in Moonrise Towers. For full transparency's sake, though, the issues could potentially be caused by my PC just not being able to handle that particular scene, so, hm.
The fact the grinch face changes so dramatically between high and medium animation detail settings still strikes me as a graphical bug, though, especially since it seems to mostly be that one expression that's affected so much. Not many other characters seem to have that issue, as well; he's one of the only characters with such obvious differences. For people who were having trouble seeing differences, though, the reason for that may be because the biggest change between animation detail settings does seem to be that one expression, which is one particular animation rig I'm going to talk a little more about later.
It's possible that one rig itself is bugged on higher animation detail settings, and my mod ended up bypassing that by having his model use the medium detail animations instead. Who can say, though. I am not going to speak for Larian or their intentions, I'm just giving you my thoughts on the matter.
EDIT: Actually, after further testing and comparing animation detail settings, the more I'm convinced that rig really should not look so different between animation detail settings. For most other characters and most of his own expressions besides that one, the changes can actually be really subtle, making the expressions a bit less extreme, making them blink a bit less, and minimizing the wrinkle map—nobody else has their entire face change so dramatically. If I had to take a guess as to why it happens for him, it may be because they didn't update that rig for his new model in the full release game (and why changing that setting makes him look much more like his EA self), but don't quote me on that. That's just my theory at the moment.
But, because that expression looks so different between animation detail settings, he's actually a really good litmus test for whether any fix for custom head animations will work. Other heads are still affected by the issue, but that one expression of his is the most obvious and dramatic. Grinchstarion may actually be a blessing to anyone looking to solve what seems to be a pretty pervasive issue with custom head models, which is just incredible, honestly. Let's all do our best to re-grinch him (and thank him for all his hard work).
What happens if Larian fixes it?
Please for the love of g-d at this point I personally hope they never do. I hope they never say a thing about it, either—I'd much, much, much rather they work on other things, like fixing things for Wyll, or at least communicating with us and letting us know something's coming for him. The last thing I want them to do is rush an update for Wyll, but I am so desperate to know they're working on something for him, at least. There are bigger things to worry about than grinch face. Please, don't report it to Larian on behalf of my mod; if you want a fix, you've already got one here.
If you're going to give Larian feedback on behalf of anything I've done, please, just, ask for more content for Wyll instead (I, at least, would very much appreciate that).
If they do ever change it, though, I've got all the files related to Astarion's original head model, textures, animation rigs, and material/animation banks as of Patch 6 - Hotfix 20 backed up, and I've uploaded them for others to back them up, too. You can find a .zip file with all of them on the downloads page, under Miscellaneous Files. I've also tested whether just extracting the models from the game causes them to lose the animation detail settings, but that doesn't seem to be the case—it really does seem to be Blender that's the issue. Putting Astarion's model extracted straight from the game with BG3 Modder's Multitool into the folder his replacement mesh goes resulted in zero changes from the vanilla game—which is what we'd want to have happen. It's not the extraction process that's the issue, thankfully.
I also ended up finding the original grinch face expression rig while I was testing, which you should prioritize backing up if you want to hold onto it (and should try restoring from the backup if they change it). The actual grinch face rig is this file right here:
Public\Shared\Assets\Characters\_Anims\Elves\_Male\Elf_M_Head_Astarion_Rig\ELF_M_Head_Astarion_Rig_DFLT_EMOT_Pose_Happy_E.GR2
That rig is included in the .zip file, along with all other files I could find relating to his head model and expressions.
I haven't had much luck actually importing and troubleshooting the animation, and I'm far too tired and fried to poke at it any more, but I can confirm that is the actual rig for it (substituting that rig with a different one replaces it in the game, so it really is that one).
And also, if Larian ends up changing it themselves, please don't yell at me. I talked about this on Twitter, but literally all I wanted to do with this mod was figure out why setting graphics settings to medium fixed the grinch face. I like solving little tech problems, and this seemed to be one. And when the little tweak I made seemed to fix it, I thought I'd share that. I did not make this mod to make him "look better," all I wanted to do was fix a bug. What it seems I actually may have done, though, is stumble on a pervasive issue with custom head modding, that inadvertently ended up implementing the same fix that setting animation details to medium does (just with more of his original face lines, because it keeps the high detail wrinkle map).
And with the amount of people mad at me over this, it seems more people prefer the grinch face than not—to the extent you're willing to yell at a stranger over it. If Larian ever fixes it themselves, I doubt it would be due to fan request. Please stop saying I don't understand his story/I'm disrespecting the creators' original vision/etc; a lot of people have been saying really awful things and making assumptions about me personally over this and I ask you all, kindly, to stop. Please. The comments about me "disrespecting the creators' original vision"/etc are especially bizarre, considering I've been very clear I made no changes to the mesh beyond adding LODs, and also what this mod actually seems to do is just, have him use one set of his animations—that are already in the game—instead of another. I did not make any of the animations the replacement mesh uses, Larian did. All my mod does is enable them for him, without having to change the graphics settings for other characters, and lets him keep his face lines in the process.
Please do not let yourself get so attached to grinch memes that you will yell at real people over it. I genuinely cannot believe I have to say that.
Do you have screenshots/video showing the differences between custom models and medium animation LOD in the unmodded game?
Considering they're identical with the exception of custom models still having the high detail wrinkle map, comparison images and videos won't really help; I'm not sure how to truly convey what's going on without you all testing it for yourself. Me and my younger sibling have put together some vanilla saves for you all to hopefully be able to compare a little easier (they've never used mods, so I asked them to help me out in getting some truly guaranteed vanilla saves for you), EDIT: which have now been uploaded under "Miscellaneous Files." The end of the Nautiloid tutorial level, when you reach the controls for the helm, is also pretty good point of reference to be able to tell the differences. Save before you reach the controls, and then try testing the cutscene with and without a custom model, while changing the animation level of detail in video settings. Replacing the wrinkle map for the model you're using with a blank one will help you see the differences (or lack thereof) a bit better, too.
Again, hopefully with more people aware of the problem, the modding community as a whole can start looking for solutions. Because again, I don't think this issue is only affecting my meshes, and other modders may want to double-check their own.
I do sincerely apologize for misattributing the cause of the issue at first—and thank you very much again to vyrelis for helping troubleshoot the actual cause with me!!
I really hope this long-winded explanation makes sense; I'll do my best to answer any questions if people have them.
Take care everyone,
Milo
Thank you both for uncovering this! Major appreciation! Could there be a way to fix it for existing head mods?
OK SO, I think I was a little hasty in saying the issue is due to missing LODs!!! Please don't report this as a bug to Larian until I can figure out more of what's causing the issue.
It seems like adding the missing LODs isn't the only reason the fix works—importing/exporting from blender may actually cause custom heads to be less expressive, even though adding the missing LODs does make a difference as well (and deleting them does add back some of the grinchiness). I'm not entirely sure what's going on, and I'm going to do some more experimenting to figure out how what I did Actually works (and if there's a way to bring back that expressiveness with the tools I have). I sincerely apologize for saying it was due to the missing LODs; atm I don't think that's the only thing going on!!!
I was wondering, if Astarion's modded face - when put through Blender - always uses medium animation detail level, can we replace it with high animation detail level by just renaming? As in, rename the high one to have the medium's name, so the modded face can retain high animation detail level while it "thinks" it's using the medium. I imagine this could be done in some lsf/lsx file, since those should be the ones that determine what the face is using.
I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, it's a bit tricky
The closest I've come to an answer so far was actually by downloading a free trial of Maya, which, iirc is the program Larian uses. And there's a few things I figured out while I had said free trial, mainly that when you import a .GR2 head mesh extracted straight from the game into Maya, it looks like this:
Which uh. Is something! A note: I didn't reweight the ears at all. They were still attached to the head on import to Maya, which is not something that happens when importing a model to Blender. And another note: this giant purple ball from...what I could tell when I had access to the program is actually meant to be joints in the rig, that were potentially scaled up a bit too far (?) I'm...gonna be honest, I don't know much about Maya yet. I'd like to learn more about it, but I'm a little lost atm. If anyone has any insights they'd be very appreciated!!!
...Whatever happened with the original model, though, is way worse when you import a mesh that's been run through Blender. Doing so gave me...Whatever This Is:
...Again, I am not very familiar with this program yet. But I think if your rig explodes into a dense purple ball that completely engulfs the original mesh, this is probably not good!
That's as far as I was able to get before the free trial ran out, though 😅. (The trial itself lasts a month, I just was too busy to look into it much...) However, just, based on this, I have a feeling the reason Blender meshes are locked into the medium animation detail setting is because of the rigs for the heads themselves, and potentially how Blender handles them vs how Maya does. As to how to fix this or why, I've got no clue, but hopefully someone else will find this information helpful!
(Sorry for rambling a bit in this reply! I've been meaning to bring the stuff about the rigs up for a while but kept forgetting, and thought it might be good to include it while we're looking into solutions 😅 I hope it's useful! And if not, then at least I hope it's interesting? Hm.)
The very fact that ears stay where they're supposed to be when the head is imported into Maya says a lot about the situation, let alone the purple ball thing. I would love to look into this but it took me a lot of time to learn just Blender (and I'm still only at editing, not creating new stuff), and this free trial isn't enough time for me to dig into it. (and holy crap, Maya is expensive, way too much for my amateurish peasantness)
Maybe, hopefully, Larian would provide modding tools for us to properly edit meshes without harming animation rigs? 🤞
It bugs the Hells outta me how only Astarion's head has such a vivid transition in animation detail from high to medium. I made a subtle head edit for him and his expressions aren't the same anymore 😭 Look at my boy:
I mean, it's still good imho, but it's not that something that high level animation detail has. It's not just about the grinch smile; his face is overall somehow more loose, it loses that signature tight evil smirk and squint, which for me is a part of his identity.
As for digging, I have found something called "Animation Waterfall" in the lsf.lsx file under Visual Bank and I'm not sure what it is, there are four of them:
<node id="AnimationSetOverrides">
Maybe it's something unrelated, but I thought it might be worth pointing out.<attribute id="PairElement1" type="guid" value="b6aa23c3-c96d-42d5-8ffa-8d441d18faa7" />
<attribute id="PairElement2" type="FixedString" value="f4ead328-66b0-35c8-4c30-319ce28fa36f" />
<attribute id="strAnimationSetOverrideType" type="int32" value="0" />
</node>
<node id="AnimationWaterfall">
<attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="a6289ad6-3082-e660-2a09-4805aa349c78" />
</node>
<node id="AnimationWaterfall">
<attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="f4a56a54-9552-4178-139f-a229a7a6dc57" />
</node>
<node id="AnimationWaterfall">
<attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="29b22fc6-57ee-9809-ab82-86cb1bf1aed6" />
</node>
<node id="AnimationWaterfall">
<attribute id="Object" type="FixedString" value="c465d4f0-e0b8-6f59-1515-8ee33a15669e" />
</node>
I've discovered exactly why NPC faces don't use high level animations: their LOD 0 head mesh isn't connected (morphed) to the bone group blendshape_base (and all the bones in that group, which end with _driver), and that bone group is responsible for all those wonderful, fine emotes. Also, importing the head into Blender automatically erases bone group gesture_base, which is the parent of the bone gesture_01, and that in turn messes up the entire bone structure in the head model.
All of these aren't affecting CC heads, but edited NPC heads are suffering from distorted facial emotes. Even as it is, it still works, and they aren't all that noticeable on most NPCs, but on Astarion the difference is glaring, as we already know.
I reported my findings to all the wrinkly brains of our modding community on Discord, and... we might get an update for the GR2 exporter in a week or so! All hail NoiraFayn, one of our Greater Deities of Modding BG3 🙏✨ How she manages to adjust the clunky Blender according to Maya's functionalities, I'll never know. Godly powers!
The fix should (hopefully) address the misaligned and detached bones. Fingers crossed that it also solves the emotes issue! 🤞
I have loved using this mod for my patch 6 games, and I'm trying to make a list of mods I need to keep, update, or remove whenever I decide to update to patch 7. To your knowledge, is this mod now kinda redundant? I know Larian adjusted his mesh and/or expression rigs in patch 7 (thanks to your re-grinchifier which is also incredible jsyk lol), but do you know if they just did the same thing you did for this mod or if they did something else entirely? In other words, would this just be taking up space in my mod list, or is there still a benefit to keeping this mod?
Good God I hope that makes sense.. it's too early and I haven't had my coffee yet lol
There's is one major benefit to the De-Grinchifier that I'm not sure Patch 7 covers yet. And it's that the De-Grinchifier smooths out lipsync, which was pretty broken for him before. But Patch 7 might've fixed the same thing! I haven't tested that much yet, but I'm really hoping it did, actually; the broken lipsync is a pretty big accessibility issue for people who need to lipread! But, again, if that's something you need, I'd recommend trying both the vanilla version and the De-Grinchifier to see what you prefer.
I've only played on high LOD and I mostly just talk to Astarion (maybe it's correct to say I pay more attention more when Astarion is talking) so I never noticed that he has particularly bad lipsync, I kinda just assumed everyone's was a little bit... off. A little stiff.
I just started a fresh playthrough, my boy hasn't even smiled at me yet, so grinch smiles aside I'm already pleased with the movement quality overall with this mod. It's not night and day or anything, but it is genuinely better.
In my heart he still has grinch in his smirk, but it's something that happens under certain circumstances. Like when he's trying not to laugh. Regardless, the mod gets an easy thumbs up from me, a Grinch Astarion Lover.
I don't really get why the mod is that divisive, but I hope it continues to do well and Modder doesn't have to deal with any more stress inducing people.
(I hope that explanation makes sense, I'm pretty sleep deprived 😅 Let me know if you have any questions!!)
A little note: the ears on this head are never hidden by headwear, they poke through
I admit there are some moments the Grinch face would make sense; maybe even be wanted! I suspect these moments are why some people love the Grinch Grin. However, to me it seems there are more moments where he should look the "Charming Charlatan" not the Grinch; and I personally find these moments rather jarring to experience. With this mod installed, I am far more please with his visualization.
To all the haters: this is not the sort of thing you need to yell about. Letting Astarion keep his lips (as he does in every visual setting but high), is not a diversity issue or anything else deserving of outrage. It is a cosmetic preference. If you do not like it, this is the sort of mod you can just scroll right past. There are plenty enough things out there actually deserving of your outrage that you need not waste it on this.
Magnetuning - Thank You! Please keep tinkering because you are doing good work.
anyhow, apologies for being flippant and rude in my initial comment. i was a total hater on that day for reasons completely outside of bg3 lmao 👍