Making Ling's Coiffure & Project Beauty play nice together - Fallout 3 Mod Troubleshooting (2024)

radwolf76

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I'm working on a fresh-from-the-ground-up reinstall of FO3 and I'm looking for advice to get Project Beauty and Ling's Coiffure successfully installed together. While both readmes state they're incompatable, and that the authors can not and will not support attempts to change that, in theroy, for what I want to use them for they should be able to run side by side -- I'm only interested in the changes that Project Beauty makes to NPCs and don't need any of its resources to be playable options for the PC, and while Ling's Coiffure can be used as a base for altering NPC apperance in other mods, I intend to primarily use it to open up choices for myself for my PC.

The readme for Ling's says that the problem is Project Beauty.esm, that you can run Project Beauty.esp just fine, as long as you use FO3Edit to change it to reference Lings.esm as a master instead of Project Beauty.esm. It also says that this option is quite popular. The instructions are fairly straightforward, except that the version of Project Beauty that I have has no .esp, just an .esm (I do have some compatablity patch .esps, but no file that's named simply "Project Beauty.esp"). I'm assuming that those instructions were written for an earlier version of Project Beauty that used seperate seperate master and plugin files.

I've tried searching for this earlier version, but either my google-fu is weak today, or my assumption is incorrect. If a master/plugin version of Project Beauty did exist at somepoint, is it still available for download? In my searching, I did turn up references to a file Earache had put out earlier called LingsBeautyProject.esp which was intended to be a starting point for modders to create their own compatability patches, but that seems like it's no longer available either.

Alternately, are there any edits I can make to either mod in FO3Edit/GECK to either mod to support my intended uses for them? Or is it just a matter of choosing the correct load order and making a merged patch for them? Or both?

Finally, I intend to use Breeze's Male & Type 3 female body replacers, and while researching, I came across some old posts that seemed to indicate that Project Beauty wasn't compatable with Type 3. Is this still the case or is that an old issue that has since been resolved?

Thanks in advance.

rgx02

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Finally, I intend to use Breeze's Male & Type 3 female body replacers, and while researching, I came across some old posts that seemed to indicate that Project Beauty wasn't compatable with Type 3. Is this still the case or is that an old issue that has since been resolved?

Yes, its been resolved, you can use any body replacer along with project beauty HD.

Cant help with the coiffure problem, sorry. I only use Project Beauty HD and Anthony Lings Finer Things.
Project beauty already adds a few new hair style and others if you want to create your character, doesnt that work for you?

ninjafish

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bethjunkie

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Just thinking out loud since I don't use Project Beauty. If you used the Standard Version of Project Beauty instead of the HD version, the only changes would be to npc faces so you *should* be able to use Lings for your own character. You might want to look into using Wrye Flash to make things work as well.

Edit: Or not. I just downloaded PB to look at the files and the one I was thinking of is no longer there (I should pay more attention to posts). But hey, if you want to try it, install everything by Fomod for easy removal, and see what kind of monsters pop out.

radwolf76

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Project beauty already adds a few new hair style and others if you want to create your character, doesnt that work for you?

Lings Coiffure has a wider selection of playable hair and eyes, and I'm too used to its extensive list of choices to want to give it up. And the EditorID compatibility with Hairpack is a big plus for me, as I may want to use a Hairpack-dependent companion mod at some point.

they can't and won't work together, mainly because they are two mods that do essentially similiar things. Thats like running f*ck2 and FWE...

At one point, there was a compatabliity patch for running f*ck2 and FWE (but it hasn't been updated for the most recent versions of each yet). It's just a matter of picking and chosing what parts of each mod you want to use. And in this case, the two mods don't even do esentially similar things. Project Beauty is an NPC replacer. Lings Coiffure is a hair and eye resource pack. (Now if I was trying to merge PB and Lings Pretty Things, that would be a case of mods doing the same thing.)

After examining the esm files in FO3Edit, I've determined that they both use many of the same resources under different EditorIDs. Since I want to use Lings mainly for Player Character creation, and PBHD for its changes to stock NPCs, I've started on a compatibility plugin that contains the full list of resources from both. To avoid getting duplicate entries in the chargen menu, I'm removing the playable flag from all the Project Beauty hairs. This way, the Project Beauty NPCs can still use the hair or eyes they were setup to use, and I get to make my own selections from Lings.

The other major difference between the two esms is the changes to the races to set up eyelash support. In this instance, I actually prefer Project Beauty's settings, I'm copying over the Project Beauty race records, and then adding in Lings hair and eyes. It's a slow process made even slower by the fact that I'm working 13 hour shifts this week, but it'll be worth it if I get these two working together.

Anyway, I do appreciate all the input everyone's given me, and I'll try to post updates of my progress.

Edited by sc_wolf, 23 November 2010 - 03:01 AM.

biggsyke

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Project beauty already adds a few new hair style and others if you want to create your character, doesnt that work for you?

Lings Coiffure has a wider selection of playable hair and eyes, and I'm too used to its extensive list of choices to want to give it up. And the EditorID compatibility with Hairpack is a big plus for me, as I may want to use a Hairpack-dependent companion mod at some point.

After examining the esm files in FO3Edit, I've determined that they both use many of the same resources under different EditorIDs. Since I want to use Lings mainly for Player Character creation, and PBHD for its changes to stock NPCs, I've started on a compatibility plugin that contains the full list of resources from both. To avoid getting duplicate entries in the chargen menu, I'm removing the playable flag from all the Project Beauty hairs. This way, the Project Beauty NPCs can still use the hair or eyes they were setup to use, and I get to make my own selections from Lings.

The other major difference between the two esms is the changes to the races to set up eyelash support. In this instance, I actually prefer Project Beauty's settings, I'm copying over the Project Beauty race records, and then adding in Lings hair and eyes. It's a slow process made even slower by the fact that I'm working 13 hour shifts this week, but it'll be worth it if I get these two working together.

Anyway, I do appreciate all the input everyone's given me, and I'll try to post updates of my progress.

Wow, quite an ambitious project. Good luck, I look forward to your progress.

rgx02

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radwolf76

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If you do get around to merge this plugin, will you upload it to nexus? If you dont, could you send it to me (for personal use)?

I had considered a public release, yes. First though I have to finish it and make sure it works like I think it's going to. Then I'd see how the authors feel about it. I certanly wouldn't upload it to the Nexus without the blessings of both creators. At the very least, I'll give detailed documentation here on what I did.

radwolf76

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su27

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This way, the Project Beauty NPCs can still use the hair or eyes they were setup to use, and I get to make my own selections from Lings.

I was looking exactly for that kind of patch - Project Beauty NPCs and "Linged" PC...
Looking forward to your mod on nexus