This technique is now obsolete. Please see the "standalone textures" section of the main description.

If you want to use one tint map for most characters but different ones for your warden and/or select NPCs, you'll need these resources (as well as a main file as above).

In this kit, the three tint maps have been assigned a letter: A for dark lips, B for medium lips, and C for pale lips. There are two ways of using the kit:

Presets
This is the most user-friendly way of the two approaches, but it is also the most limited: it allows you to assign a different tint map to your warden, but only your warden.

I've provided three presets (MOPs) for each gender/race combo, one for each tint map. The presets are just the "base" presets with a few minor changes:

• They each have one of my three tint maps applied. This cannot be altered in the character creator, which is why it must be set in the mop file.
• The default skintone on them is the darkest vanilla tint, just so that you can see which map you're using at a glance. You can of course change this to anything you like.
• The eyes are further forward (as far forward as possible without the brow mesh going weird) because Bioware's decisions about eye placement are awful and this is a slider you can only change in the toolset.
• The elves in the elf update file also have their ears set up, and their pupils 50% larger (since they look a little pinpricky otherwise).
  

Spoiler:  

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The face tint map is assigned in the MAO (material object) file that is associated with a given head MMH (model mesh hierarchy) file. However you can't just edit the MAO files, since then all characters with those gender/race combinations will be changed. In order to restrict the change to a specific character, a duplicate MMH must point to a new MAO file that in turn points to the new tint map; the new MMH must in turn be referenced by the character's headmorph.

I've provided MMH and MAO files to cover all three maps for all different heads (including children and qunari), but because the base head model (ie the MMH) of a headmorph cannot be changed in the toolset, you must change it yourself once your headmorph is exported to MOR or MOP. You can either use the toolset or pyGFF for this.

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).

• Open your MOR or MOP in your chosen tool, and expand the top level if it isn't already expanded (the toolset will probably have expanded it; pyGFF probably will not).
• The group you need will either be the first item (in a MOP) or the second item (in a MOR, just underneath the morph's name) and it will be labelled MORPH PARTS; expand that.
• The first item underneath that (numbered 0) points to the base head model; it will say **_UHM_BASa_0, where ** represents the race/gender character combination. (For example, a female human will have HF_UHM_BASa_0; a male elf will have EM_UHM_BASa_0.) Do not confuse this with **_uem_basa_0 (the eyeballs) or **_ulm_basa_0 (the eyelashes). The thing to look out for is that middle letter in UHM: the base head model is H; eyeballs are E; eyelashes are L.
• Edit this record to reference the base head corresponding to the tint map you wish to use. The format is **_UHM_BASpgmt#_0, where ** is again the race/gender character combination (which must stay the same) and # is the letter corresponding to the tint map you want (which is your choice). Dark lips is a; medium lips is b; pale lips is c. For example, the record for a female dwarf using the light lips map would say DF_UHM_BASpgmtc_0. This must be precisely correct; always ensure that the text ends in _0 for the naming conventions to function properly. Uppercase vs lowercase is not important, however.
• Save your file! In the toolset you can just save normally; pyGFF requires you to "save as" and overwrite the file.
  

Once you've done that, you're ready to use your MOR/MOP in game as you would normally!

• If you use tmp7704's elf update you will need the compatibility files I've provided for it; either drop the folder into the Character Variance Kit folder, where the default folder names should give them load order priority over the vanilla-based heads, or drag the MMH and MOP folders out of it so that they merge with the existing MMH and MOP folders and directly overwrite the vanilla-based heads.
• There are also compatibility files available for the same makeup as mentioned in the main file's Compatibility section. These replace (or override with load order priority) the contents of the "Textures" folder.