You will need to duplicate this whole process for each tint map variant. If you want the tint map(s) to be available for any race and gender you will end up with quite a few files, but they're very small. If you don't want to edit that many files, just make sure you're covering what you need because there are some unintuitive combinations -- for example if you only want it to work for female elves you will need EF_uhm_basa_0.mmh (and LODs) and uh_hed_fema.mao (and LODs) despite the fact that uh_hed_elfa.mao does exist (seemingly unused).
When you pick a renaming convention I suggest making the same change to both filetypes so that editing the MMHs is easier and you can just paste repeatedly. For example for both MAOs and MMHs I added "pgmt" to the end of the base name and then used a/b/c to indicate the different maps (since vanilla uses letters to indicate variants). I recommend using a batch renaming script or utility for the actual filenames (I'm lazy, I use a program called Rename Master).
MAO files
MAOs can be edited in a plain text editor: they have XML syntax. Notepad++ can batch edit files and that will cut down your editing considerably because then you only have to edit the MMH files by hand. (Anyone want to write a batch editing script for pyGFF?)
Make a copy of the vanilla head MAOs and their LOD files (packages\core\data\materialobjects.erf). When you rename the files, remember to keep the underscore and characters at the end of the LOD files.
uh_hed_dwfa, uh_hed_dwfa_l2, uh_hed_dwfa_l3 (male dwarves)
uh_hed_fema, uh_hed_fema_l2, uh_hed_fema_l3 (female elves, humans and dwarves)
uh_hed_kida, uh_hed_kida_l2, uh_hed_kida_l3 (children)
uh_hed_masa, uh_hed_masa_l2, uh_hed_masa_l3 (male elves and humans)
uh_hed_quna, uh_hed_quna_l2, uh_hed_quna_l3 (qunari)There are other MAOs that correspond to the other complexions (eg elfa, infa), but they don't seem to be used (eg elfa exists, but EM uses masa and EF uses fema, which is why those are their default complexions).
- Edit the material object name line to the new name of the MAO file.
- Edit the mml_tTintMask line(s) to your tint mask variant filename. There are two mml_tTintMask lines in the non-LOD files; the second seems to override the first as you'd expect, but I haven't experimented with actually removing the first.
- Save!
MMH files
MMHs can be edited in the toolset or pyGFF. To edit a line in the toolset, simply double click on it, edit the text, then hit enter. To edit a line in pyGFF, click on it then move down to the "Edit" box in the bottom left to change the text, then click the "Save" button when you're done (this does not save the file, only changes the line).
Make a copy of the vanilla head MMHs and their LOD files (packages\core\data\modelhierarchies.erf). You do not need the PHY files. When you rename the files, remember to keep the underscore and number at the end so that the LOD naming conventions work.
HM_uhm_basa_0, HM_uhm_basa_2, HM_uhm_basa_3
HF_uhm_basa_0, HF_uhm_basa_2, HF_uhm_basa_3
DM_uhm_basa_0, DM_uhm_basa_2, DM_uhm_basa_3
DF_uhm_basa_0, DF_uhm_basa_2, DF_uhm_basa_3
EM_uhm_basa_0, EM_uhm_basa_2, EM_uhm_basa_3
EF_uhm_basa_0, EF_uhm_basa_2, EF_uhm_basa_3
QM_uhm_basa_0, QM_uhm_basa_2, QM_uhm_basa_3
KN_uhm_basa_0, KN_uhm_basa_2, KN_uhm_basa_3If you cover all eight heads, that's 24 MMH files per tint map. Grab a beverage and some nice music.
- Open the top level if it's not open already
- Edit the MMH name record (first record) to the new name of the MMH file
- Open MMH_Children -> 0 -> MMH_Children -> 6
- Edit the MMH_Material_Object record (second record) to the new name of the corresponding MAO file. LOD files correspond with each other; eg DM_uhm_basa_2 will normally point to uh_hed_dwfa_l2.
- Save!
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