Causes:
If you are running into the brown face bug you need to understand what causes it in the first place. There are three known reasons;
(1) lack of memory/VRAM. You will see the bug occasionally, but not all the time (The HFR player refresh script/Rusty Face fix can only help with this type).
(2) mismatched face texture sizes and/or format. You will see the brown face bug all the time (Additional mods and 'fixes' are not going to help here, unless the mod actually corrects problematic textures).
(3) The official HD DLC. Do not use it as it is incomplete with almost all available face texture mods. If you must use it, do not install any face texture mods (at least not without HD DLC specific patches).
What can YOU do about it:
(1) If it's the first one where you run into random brown faces that only happen OCCASIONALLY, the Rusty Face Fix or HFR's script will eliminate, or at least, minimize the occurrences. Also, it is best not to quick load your saves as it is known to cause the brown face bug, load your saves from the menu.
The game also has a hard-coded BA2 archive limit of around ~500 files which may also cause issues with faces if its exceeded, so make sure you are below that threshold of BA2 files in your game data folder.
(2) For the second scenario where the bug happens constantly, even on fresh game load, no external fixes or scripts will help. The game has engine limitations where the face texture sizes must match; Yes, ALL OF THEM (including tints, masks, etc., there are hundreds). You cannot simply mix and match 2k face textures with the original 1k sizes. If you are unable to find the offending textures, I would suggest uninstalling all your face texture mods, and once the bug is gone, only then start installing them back, one by one. Make sure to stick to one resolution only (1k original, 2k, etc.).
If you are editing the face textures, you need to save them in the correct format as well. Do not use BC7 when exporting face textures. The textures must use these formats;
Face diffuse map (_d) =BC3
Face Normal map (_n) =BC5
Face Specular map (_s) =BC5
So to recap, to use 2K face textures, you will need a mod that covers ALL the textures, and also, do not mix and match sizes (if you are unsure if a certain 2k mod covers all textures or not, only install it AFTER you have installed a known, full 2k texture mod). You can check the HiPoly Faces REDUX description page for my recommendations. And finally, only install a 2K version of HFR if you have one of the full 2k face mods, otherwise stick to the main file only.
Notes on the Rusty Face Bug aka Brown Face Bug. Causes and Solutions.
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I'd just like to add the following information regarding 1K face textures as that was the cause of rusty face on my end a few months back (when I switched to Serene Skin).
Let's take basehumanfemale textures as an example.
Each texture has 3 files: diffuse (basefemalehead_d.dds), specular (basefemalehead_s.dds) and normal (basefemalehead_n.dds).
The dimensions for 1K face textures are 1024x1024, though not for everything. Diffuse (_d.dds) and normal (_n.dds) are supposed to be 1024x1024. Specular textures, on the other hand, should be half the size - 512x512.
If you are running 1K face and are experiencing the rusty face bug, check your textures.
If all your 1K face textures are the correct (all the dimensions are exactly how they should be) - dig a bit deeper.
If you're using any mods that edit/add stuff in form of makeup and what not (such as Collection of textures and presets for the girls), check those textures as well! I'm only bringing this up as just yesterday I found out that 6 textures from the said mod (replacer) are incorrect. I event went as far as creating a new preset just for the purpose of getting the rusty face issue, and I did.
To properly change the size of textures (1024x1024 to 512x512, for example), I'd recommend using Fallout 4 Texture Resizer
I sincerely hope this helps and saves future readers some time! Take care!
Your info is absolutely correct within the context of how most face tex mods and the vanilla game is set up. However, the specular actually does not need to be half the size of the other textures. You can have full 2K/4K face texture sets, provided of course, all the spec maps are correctly sized. Case in point, I use 2K spec maps along with 2K diffuse and normal maps, and it works great. Just a small FYI.
It's six textures with the wrong size as he said in the FaceDetails folder: CheekCreasesFemale_s.dds, CheekSunkenFemale_s.dds, EyeGauntFemale_s.dds, MouthBlemish03_s.dds, Pocks1_s.dds and Scar5_s.dds. So whoever is having problems with black faces and COT, try to either delete these textures, or resize them to 512x512 and save as BC5/ATI2 with mipmaps checked.
I've spend the past hour troubleshooting, so I figured I'd share my findings here to save others the headache. If you are experiencing certain NPCs (in my case Tina De Luca and Dr. Penske in vault 81) having brown faces even though all of your textures are properly 2k, and can confirm that none of the brown face scripts are working, check and see if you have the Looks Menu Customization Compendium mod installed.
While it has a 2k texture file, some of the textures don't work properly. I've verified that they are indeed 2048x2048, but the game simply fails to load them from what I can tell. Someone with more experience than me can probably figure out the why of it.
Anyway, for me at least, I was able to fix the brown faces in 3 steps.
First, open console, click the npc with the issue, type "slm (NPC ID)"
Second, I removed the problematic textures (in my case, it was "Atom's Third Eye" in the facepaints section) (Spacebar to toggle a texture, E to confirm the change)
Third, I went to the body section and pressed Q to open the skins menu (Not sure which mod adds this, *I think* it's either LMCC or HFR). Hovering over any of the options should sort of "refresh" the NPC's face and it'll be back to normal. You do not need to apply any of the skins, just tab out and press enter to confirm changes.
If you don't have the skins menu, you can also just disable and enable the NPC.
Reloading the save with the "Brown Face bug fix script update" file from HFR installed did not refresh the NPC. Nor did closing the game and loading the save.
Unfortunately I have no idea why these NPCs had that particular facepaint equipped in the first place. I'm fairly certain none of my mods touch Dr Penske, and the only one that touches Tina is one that lets me recruit her and her brother. I'm several days of playtime into my 650+ modded game, so it could be any number of things.
This is also the first time I've seen a non-2k-1k-texture-issue brown face that I wasn't able to fix using RFF, RFFR, or the brown face bug fix script.
Some more info about the particular facepaint that was causing the issue:
From what I can tell, it is only a diffuse map. There are no files for specular or normal maps.I can confirm it is the proper 2048x2048 resolutionI re-saved the file using paint.net as a .dds in BC3 format. This did not solve the problem.The filesize is 5.33mb, so I believe it does have mipmaps.As I was typing this, I checked other facepaints just to be sure it was just this one. There are more. It seems the entirety of the Children of Atom themed facepaints are also causing this issue. There could also be other makeup options in other categories that cause problems, but I really don't feel like running this test hundreds of times.All of the Children of Atom themed facepaints have AGCP in the filenames. I'm thinking the mod author may have picked a wrong setting somewhere when exporting his textures.Hope this info helps someone.
P.S. If anyone knows of a mod that could have randomly added those facepaints to the NPCs, lemme know. It's not a super difficult fix, but it would be nice to prevent it from happening again.
Now, what that doesn't explain is why Tina and Dr. Penske have those facepaints equipped in the first place. They're vault dwellers, not CoA. I checked my mods in FO4edit to see if any of them added that facepaint to those NPCs. The fallout4.esm does it. I have no idea what is happening anymore. I have NEVER in all of my playthroughs seen them with that facepaint, so something weird is going on and giving NPCs facepaints that they shouldn't have, but that's not really relevant to this article, so I'll leave it at that while I search for a mod that has 2k CoA textures.
Tina's mark looks like a scar, almost like she was branded. Dr. Penske's isn't even visible in-game.
Maybe there was supposed to be a CoA related quest for Vault 81 that got scrapped. Idk. Whole thing's just weird.
I have the problem that a few NPC's have the brown face bug and where before the rusty face fix did fix it now doesnt anymore. I'm on a new playthrough and everything was fine before.
The only mods i added were
THBrows
Collection of presets and presets for the girls
Unfair skin
PaTRaN's Piper 1k - 2k faces
as these were requirements of a mod i didnt liked and so uninstalled all of them.
But now have this issue, though non of the mods are in my list anymore.
Is there a chance something did break?
Sry for the newb questions, i tried find out a solution for 2 days now w/o success. My english also isnt the very best and made it quite a bit harder.
Thx for any help, if it isnt too bothersome!
Update:
I found out that my issue came from installing following mod "CoTaP Face Texture Specular Fix" that had edits to following data:
CheekCreasesFemale_s.dds, CheekSunkenFemale_s.dds, EyeGauntFemale_s.dds, MouthBlemish03_s.dds, Pocks1_s.dds and Scar5_s.dds.
Though i uninstalled said mod i still had rusty face, but removing the files manually did fix.
So my question, is it save delete these files or will that cause future issues, game looking for files that arent there anymore? fgambler you say it can be done i guess. but wanted to make sure again. Thx a lot for any help!! (Again, sry for being a newb here)
As some people know, there's still a numerical BSA threshold that you can reach where textures randomly appear multi-coloured. But, even when you reduce you BSA count to one or two below this, you can still have adverse effects, one of those for me was a persistent, random brown face bug. I'm currently 20 BSAs below my threshold, and the brown face issue is virtually gone now. I hope this help anyone in the same position!
How does Buffout affect this bug?
You can easily tell if a texture has mipmaps or not by looking at the file size. A 2K BC3 texture with mipmaps is about 5.33MB, and the same without mipmaps is about 1MB smaller in size.
I had gotten the brown face bug before but a simple reload had fixed it. Got it again and it wouldn't go away, I was freakin' out. But I managed to stumble upon this thread and you've saved me. It was easy enough for me to find the culprit, now that you've enlightened me what causes the problem in the first place.
Thanks again!
But seriously, there could be any no. of other, unknown ways this bug could happen, this is a Bethesda game after all...
I asked because I see it two or three times per game, I use 2k textures, I have a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, I don't know if lack of memory/VRAM plays any role here, the game runs smoothly, no CTD, no lags. Maybe it's just a Fallout 4 thing. I use Rusty Face Fix Redux 2022 - fixes the bug immediately.