Baldur's Better Aesthetics 1.0 — Baldur's Gate 3

[Brick Sprickly]

Where do you place Albert's version of the mod? I tried in the Data folder and in the mods folder, but neither seems to work.

[Tipfy]

Where do you place Albert's version of the mod?

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\Mods
All .pak mods goes there.

You need mod manager to activate it. I think mod fixer is needed too

[Dreogan]

If it wasn't such a pain in the *** I'd want to do a mod that makes *everyone in the game* black. Then throw it on Nexus and see what the response is. Alas, too much effort for a shitlord experiment (so far as I know).

[CheesusCrust]

If it wasn't such a pain in the *** I'd want to do a mod that makes *everyone in the game* black. Then throw it on Nexus and see what the response is. Alas, too much effort for a shitlord experiment (so far as I know).

i assure you good sir, they'd praise the living **** out of it, for the same "shitpost" had been made in the past and got positively highlighted in the net after (figures)

[Auctor]

Hello! New to this website and was happy to find this mod, I like my BG3 to look a lot more lore-accurate.

Encountering a problem, whenever I extract it the mod dosen't seem to do anything. It's going into the right folder and the .pak file is right there, in AppData/Local/LarianStudios/BaldursGate3/Mods But nothing happens. I've exhausted all options short of reinstalling the game I can think of.

Cheers in advance for any help that can be provided.

[pokafox]

Hello! New to this website and was happy to find this mod, I like my BG3 to look a lot more lore-accurate.

Encountering a problem, whenever I extract it the mod dosen't seem to do anything. It's going into the right folder and the .pak file is right there, in AppData/Local/LarianStudios/BaldursGate3/Mods But nothing happens. I've exhausted all options short of reinstalling the game I can think of.

Cheers in advance for any help that can be provided.

Hiya. You really should be using BG3 Mod Manager: https://github.com/LaughingLeader/BG3ModManager

[loregamer]

Hopefully I did this right, but here's a file of @AlbertHeinous 's whiter version that doesn't change Duke Ravengard's skin color. Made this for my girlfriend's playthrough lmao, but this can be for anyone who's leaving Wyll alone.

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Other NPCs:



Duke Ravengard:

[DagothGeas5]

Hopefully I did this right, but here's a file of @AlbertHeinous 's whiter version that doesn't change Duke Ravengard's skin color. Made this for my girlfriend's playthrough lmao, but this can be for anyone who wanted who's leaving Wyll alone.

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Other NPCs:



Duke Ravengard:

First of all, thank you for this! Didn't know it touched on Wyll's father, will keep two separate version for my different playthroughs I hope to be able to do one day!
Second, wanted to ask: I have learned to edit .lsf files and the likes, but I am unsure on where to find the skin IDs to change the tone to, do you know where I could find such a thing or what the different Baldurian/white skin tones are called? Online resources I found only cover hair and face IDs, and they are missing Nere's hair ID (which is 0e1d2489-73b6-b5aa-be5a-89ed7575d060 for anyone that was going mad looking for it).

[Envergence]

I didn't realize Ravengard was edited either, but I'm still ages away from Act 3. I personally tweaked my copy of the mod to remove the changes made to Rath and Netty (and now Ravengard with this newfound knowledge), and I think it's to my liking now; though, I will need to double check to make sure I did it correctly. Given the nomadic nature of most druids, I feel Rath is fine as the lone Chultan among the Emerald Grove druids, especially since he's one of the few NPCs with a unique face. It's a shame to replace it with one you see everywhere already.

For Netty, her default appearance doesn't fit her accent, but I don't see the point in changing her skin tone or hair color if she's still going to have a mongoloid facial structure that clashes with it.

I'd love to leave Ravengard edited, but if his character is unfortunately Chultan in canon, I'd rather not change it, as much as the canon vexes me.

[Reichspepe]

Is anyone interested in still updating this? Or @AlbertHeinous are you still planning on your update?? If I recall correctly you had some plans about making the drow in general a bit darker/changing some hairstyles to be more fitting especially for elves?

Also, I've come across some more NPCs that are black but shouldn't be like in the Moonrise Tower Linsella the female halfling in the kitchen, and Zealot Brinn, the black skinned halfling at the tower entry (he has a normal caucasian face though).

And there are still many wrong facial features for npcs that should be caucasian looking, not negroid or asiatic. Among those are:

Underdark, next to the Selunite temple:
Dhourn (Drow male with asian face, he's one of the petrified Drow in the vicinity of the Beholder)

Toll House on the "Intro Map":
Anders (Male High Half-Elf guy giving you the Karlach killing quest, white with negroid face)

North of Moonrise Tower travel point at the statue, the shadowcursed harper group of 4:
2 Shadowcursed Harpers (male woodelves, have asian faces) / in this group, there also is already 1 female harper that was changed correctly

Moonrise tower:
Araj Oblodra (Drow female trader/alchemist)
Zealot Rylveth (Drow female on the stairs behind Ketheric's throne)
Pilgrim Nalira (dwarf woman with now white skin, but negroid face still)
Pilgrim Farimorn (High Half-Elf, negroid face/light skin)
Adept Merim in front of the tower stairs (human female with negroid face/light skin)
Zealot Soreni down in the prison in front of the Heavy Oak Doors (Drow female with asian face)
Questioner Sumera in the prison on the left in the torture chamber (deep gnome female with "human"/orange-ish skintone and not grey as it should be/negroid face)
Radija on the second floor on the left, next to Disciple Z'rell (face again)

Last Light Inn:
Harper Mijah patrolling on the first floor (face again)
Harper Chenti in front of the front door (has a weird face "melting" / stretching thing going on when spoken to)
Fist Jehlar in the room to the right (is a human but has pointy ears, which also look kind of weird texture wise)
Fist Aubree in the same room (is an asian high half-elf)
Harper Lymn patroling down beneath the inn (Tiefling with negroid face, though I'm unsure if this one should be changed)
Harper Callie patroling outside around the entrance (dwarf woman with weird pinkish hair, think it's supposed to be red, but looks ******)
Flaming Fist Marcus, the mole guy (he has this weird blue hair going on, what would you think about making his haircolour fit to that of his beard?)




Will update as I find more

[Pixelargh]

I didn't realize Ravengard was edited either, but I'm still ages away from Act 3. I personally tweaked my copy of the mod to remove the changes made to Rath and Netty (and now Ravengard with this newfound knowledge), and I think it's to my liking now; though, I will need to double check to make sure I did it correctly. Given the nomadic nature of most druids, I feel Rath is fine as the lone Chultan among the Emerald Grove druids, especially since he's one of the few NPCs with a unique face. It's a shame to replace it with one you see everywhere already.

For Netty, her default appearance doesn't fit her accent, but I don't see the point in changing her skin tone or hair color if she's still going to have a mongoloid facial structure that clashes with it.

I'd love to leave Ravengard edited, but if his character is unfortunately Chultan in canon, I'd rather not change it, as much as the canon vexes me.

Would you mind sharing your personal edit? I would love to play with your changes.

[DagothGeas5]

I didn't realize Ravengard was edited either, but I'm still ages away from Act 3. I personally tweaked my copy of the mod to remove the changes made to Rath and Netty (and now Ravengard with this newfound knowledge), and I think it's to my liking now; though, I will need to double check to make sure I did it correctly. Given the nomadic nature of most druids, I feel Rath is fine as the lone Chultan among the Emerald Grove druids, especially since he's one of the few NPCs with a unique face. It's a shame to replace it with one you see everywhere already.

For Netty, her default appearance doesn't fit her accent, but I don't see the point in changing her skin tone or hair color if she's still going to have a mongoloid facial structure that clashes with it.

I'd love to leave Ravengard edited, but if his character is unfortunately Chultan in canon, I'd rather not change it, as much as the canon vexes me.

Would you mind sharing your personal edit? I would love to play with your changes.

I have learned a bit more on how to edit such things in my spare time and made this version for my personal use which is working for me https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cM_S3f ... sp=sharing
It is a version with restored Duke Ravenguard, Nettie, and Rath to have their old appearances back. For anyone that needs the names, Nettie is called (in the .lsb file) something with "apprentice" in the name, while Rath is called "opposed" or something along those lines, alongside DEN (not "druid", as I thought they would have). Hope this is of any use!

[Pixelargh]

I didn't realize Ravengard was edited either, but I'm still ages away from Act 3. I personally tweaked my copy of the mod to remove the changes made to Rath and Netty (and now Ravengard with this newfound knowledge), and I think it's to my liking now; though, I will need to double check to make sure I did it correctly. Given the nomadic nature of most druids, I feel Rath is fine as the lone Chultan among the Emerald Grove druids, especially since he's one of the few NPCs with a unique face. It's a shame to replace it with one you see everywhere already.

For Netty, her default appearance doesn't fit her accent, but I don't see the point in changing her skin tone or hair color if she's still going to have a mongoloid facial structure that clashes with it.

I'd love to leave Ravengard edited, but if his character is unfortunately Chultan in canon, I'd rather not change it, as much as the canon vexes me.

Would you mind sharing your personal edit? I would love to play with your changes.

I have learned a bit more on how to edit such things in my spare time and made this version for my personal use which is working for me https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cM_S3f ... sp=sharing
It is a version with restored Duke Ravenguard, Nettie, and Rath to have their old appearances back. For anyone that needs the names, Nettie is called (in the .lsb file) something with "apprentice" in the name, while Rath is called "opposed" or something along those lines, alongside DEN (not "druid", as I thought they would have). Hope this is of any use!

Thank you so much! That was exactly what I was looking for! Cheers

[lexo1000]

@DagothGeas5
I wonder if we should create a new version of the mod from scratch. The idea is to keep NPC heads meshes by default & only replace vanilla heads (from CC) that are not lore-friendly (asian & black elves, dwarfes, halfeling etc) so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

I could take care of head meshes changes if anyone is interested in modifying .lsf files. I already begin to change some of them and it looks pretty nice.

[SoLong]

@DagothGeas5
I wonder if we should create a new version of the mod from scratch. The idea is to keep NPC heads meshes by default & only replace vanilla heads (from CC) that are not lore-friendly (asian & black elves, dwarfes, halfeling etc) so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

I could take care of head meshes changes if anyone is interested in modifying .lsf files. I already begin to change some of them and it looks pretty nice.

This would require going through all the NPCs again. Perhaps you can contact Albert or Chris for their name list to save yourself some work.

In all honestly, this entire painfully ******** divershitty shoving could've been averted if only they had included a Chultan embassy or a tribal trading company. Set a few quests there and BAM there's your ******* representation. If you go with the embassy version you even have a reason why the people working there are reasonably intelligent.

And all of that without making the entire third act look like fantasy Los Angeles.

[orinEsque]

@DagothGeas5
I wonder if we should create a new version of the mod from scratch. The idea is to keep NPC heads meshes by default & only replace vanilla heads (from CC) that are not lore-friendly (asian & black elves, dwarfes, halfeling etc) so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

I could take care of head meshes changes if anyone is interested in modifying .lsf files. I already begin to change some of them and it looks pretty nice.

You gonna give Larian false data, when people start using a modded head which would have been black people head originally. And Larian be like... oh so many people into black heads.

[The_Mask]

You gonna give Larian false data

Fake representation of their own lore -> fake data once people create mods to fix it.

You reap what you sow. etc.

[Anon]

@DagothGeas5
I wonder if we should create a new version of the mod from scratch. The idea is to keep NPC heads meshes by default & only replace vanilla heads (from CC) that are not lore-friendly (asian & black elves, dwarfes, halfeling etc) so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

I could take care of head meshes changes if anyone is interested in modifying .lsf files. I already begin to change some of them and it looks pretty nice.

You gonna give Larian false data, when people start using a good looking head which would have been black people head originally. And Larian be like... oh so many people into black heads.

As if Larian couldn't simply lie. I wouldn't put this possibility past them at this point. They gotta somehow feed community the copium that a majority of people is interested in "diversity".

[1998]

@DagothGeas5
I wonder if we should create a new version of the mod from scratch. The idea is to keep NPC heads meshes by default & only replace vanilla heads (from CC) that are not lore-friendly (asian & black elves, dwarfes, halfeling etc) so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

I could take care of head meshes changes if anyone is interested in modifying .lsf files. I already begin to change some of them and it looks pretty nice.

You gonna give Larian false data, when people start using a good looking head which would have been black people head originally. And Larian be like... oh so many people into black heads.

As if Larian couldn't simply lie. I wouldn't put this possibility past them at this point. They gotta somehow feed community the copium that a majority of people is interested in "diversity".

Possibly, but at least early during the EA they were pretty open about just some average white dude being the most popular PC in char generation. Of course, Larian and the collective media hated it.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/your-b ... larian-say

[orinEsque]

It's important sven to understand who his audience is. He mentioned this in one of his old blogs. That's why they clearly got an analyst on their team.

[lexo1000]

Is there a tutorial somewhere for NPC head editing? I dig into the mod files but I don't understand the construction of it? How the game knows that files in "\Public\BetterAestheticsW" folder replace vanilla ones? Does gustav.lsf from the mod replace _merged.lsf located in Shared\Public\Shared\Content\[PAK]_CharacterVisuals ?

[Tipfy]

so we keep face diversity and we only apply the right skin colors to NPC who needs them.

Is it going to be compatible with Albert's version ?
ex; By giving your mod priority over Albert's one in the load order, so we can still get rid of the NPCs you'r version don't touch.

[lexo1000]

No, I guess the Albert version will need some modifications. What I understand about the Better Aesthetics mod and its variants is that they do 2 things:
- it changes the skin color of certain NPCs from black/yellow to white
- and for certain NPCs who use Asian or African head meshes, it replaces them with a Caucasian head (not sure about this point, if anyone have more info).

If you use my mod which replaces the African and Asian head meshes with a Caucasian one, we should restore the second point to maintain the diversity of the faces.

But my take on these head changes is that we should keep some black and asian faces for NPCs (but of course much less than vanilla) and totally remove black and asian skin color as well as head meshes for elves, dwarves and halflings. And maybe keep some black and Asian faces for the half-elves. The goal is to obtain a diversity of faces that is as respectful of lore as possible, without completely removing all non-Caucasian faces. But that's just my opinion

[Tipfy]

Oh, yes a bigger "diversity of face" would be good, but should be a diversity of caucasian faces.

But my take on these head changes is that we should keep some black and asian faces for NPCs

I disagree on that, unless the character have specific lore to it that state he's coming from a fitting place, then i could roll with it.
That being said, even if the lore said he's from the equivalent of BG3 Africa, i'd still prefer him changed anyway. ^^

[Reichspepe]

Oh, yes a bigger "diversity of face" would be good, but should be a diversity of caucasian faces.

But my take on these head changes is that we should keep some black and asian faces for NPCs

I disagree on that, unless the character have specific lore to it that state he's coming from a fitting place, then i could roll with it.
That being said, even if the lore said he's from the equivalent of BG3 Africa, i'd still prefer him changed anyway. ^^

Agreed, dwarfs, halflings and even asian/black half-elves are a huge no-no to me, I just always think about why it was there in the first place (the MESSAGE), plus it just feels wrong. But otherwise this seems like a good idea.
I've already made a post on the previous page with many npcs that need in particular their facial structure changed.

[lexo1000]

Oh, yes a bigger "diversity of face" would be good, but should be a diversity of caucasian faces.

But my take on these head changes is that we should keep some black and asian faces for NPCs

I disagree on that, unless the character have specific lore to it that state he's coming from a fitting place, then i could roll with it.
That being said, even if the lore said he's from the equivalent of BG3 Africa, i'd still prefer him changed anyway. ^^

When I said that we should keep some black & asian faces, I meant for HUMAN only. The point is that for 90% of NPCs we don't know their background. For Will & his father, we clearly know that they have black skin (D&D Forgotten Realms lore) so we should just keep them as it.
For now, let me release my mod that change CC head meshes with lore-friendly one. We'll see after how it works with Better Aesthetics & if we make a new version that takes into account my changes.

[Reichspepe]

There's also no need to change Wyll/his father, as there is already a mod for that here anyway.

[rusty_shackleford]

If you wanted to make it realistic you could just remove Wyll's father.

[Tipfy]

When I said that we should keep some black & asian faces, I meant for HUMAN only.

That is already too many to look at, IMO.

For now, let me release my mod that change CC head meshes with lore-friendly one. We'll see after how it works with Better Aesthetics & if we make a new version that takes into account my changes.

Of course, not ordering anything here. Just saying.

If you wanted to make it realistic you could just remove Wyll's father.

Alternate wyll Revamped mod does just that. Both Wyll and father.

[DagothGeas5]

No, I guess the Albert version will need some modifications. What I understand about the Better Aesthetics mod and its variants is that they do 2 things:
- it changes the skin color of certain NPCs from black/yellow to white
- and for certain NPCs who use Asian or African head meshes, it replaces them with a Caucasian head (not sure about this point, if anyone have more info).

If you use my mod which replaces the African and Asian head meshes with a Caucasian one, we should restore the second point to maintain the diversity of the faces.

But my take on these head changes is that we should keep some black and asian faces for NPCs (but of course much less than vanilla) and totally remove black and asian skin color as well as head meshes for elves, dwarves and halflings. And maybe keep some black and Asian faces for the half-elves. The goal is to obtain a diversity of faces that is as respectful of lore as possible, without completely removing all non-Caucasian faces. But that's just my opinion

Sorry for the late reply after your mention! So, about making a mod or the likes, I am unsure if I could keep up with a mod (much less with Larian's updates of the game), so while I can make and drop something, that will be all from me for a while, and it is not ideal for an ever evolving game that is, STILL, reaching towards playable status with large bug-fixes (Early Access had more scenes and working stuff than the current buggy version, for example Volo's "a terror has been chased away!" song at camp and Zevlor speaking of Avernus and the stars, which are still missing. Or a humorous dialogue option to compare Gale to Astarion regarding their personal tastes, the line was something like "So Astarion drinks blood, and you absorb magic?" and Astarion would chime in to say "What can I say, you travel with men with refined tastes.", not to mention poor Nere, same setting as Minthara, we even TELL HIM of the Prism and its protection if you free him of the Absolute, yet he is not a companion and, no matter what, is shown to be treated like a fool and a weakling at Act 2 by being turned into an undead by Balthazar, off screen too of course. I told Larian when even his dialogue bugged, and their response was to completely cut off his lines where he gives you "a tithe" for helping him, a +1 dagger, so now when you help him and free him of the Absolute he just gets cut off and dialogue ends, no tithe, no nothing. Just thrown in the trash because, I can bet, they wanted him to be an "evil white male" even though he is a drow. Cannot wait for official mod support to make him the Baeloth he deserves to be. Ranting perhaps, but today I found even more bugs while testing the game of things that worked fine before, particularly of cutscenes being butchered from how they were, especially facial expressions for Astarion which have been made all either "disgust" or "fun" or "angry", whereas before he would say something like "(didn't truly realize) just how long... - eternity -... could be." and he would have the expression one would imagine from such a phrase, now he scowls as if he ate a bug).

About the heads, I am bad at explaining, so I hope I can make sense with how I do this.
If you want to replace a head, ANY head:
Go here https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Modding:Head_Models#Elves/Drow and look for the images to see which head is which (also works for companions and custom headed NPCs). When you find the offending head, for example https://bg3.wiki/wiki/File:Elf_M_Head_3.png , you just have to look for the head's name (in this case ELF_M_NKD_Head_D ) and see where you can find it (it says in the section before each race's section, on both strong and normal body types for both sexes), in this case ELF_M_NKD_Head_D is located in (Baldur's Gate 3 install folder)/Data/Generated\Public\Shared\Assets\Characters\_Anims\Elves\_Male\Resources and inside Resources, you should place the head (any head you wish, but it should match the skeleton is was built for, for example strong for strong, and female for female) and then rename it to match the head you wish to replace (in this case ELF_M_NKD_Head_D.GR2), and you are set! Head replaced! Keep in mind that this does not replace the textures, but, though I leave them be because I have nothing better to replace them with, you can repeat the same process for the skins, though I am unsure at the moment where they are located for each head, but I know they follow the same naming convention (if you use https://github.com/Norbyte/lslib you can use it to unpack the Models.pak folder and see have heads like Cazador's or the likes at your disposal, keep in mind the package is very large, so make a copy of it and unpack it somewhere with enough space).

If you want to edit an NPC to use a different head instead of replacing the head they are using:
To do this, you have to find what that character is called in the game files. I did this only once, but it should be inside the file called gustav.pak (with gustavdev.pak having other characters there as well). Unpack it with https://github.com/Norbyte/lslib like you would a mod, and then go to a file inside that is called .lsf at the end. There should be a few around, and I cannot remember who is who, but you will know right away if it is for characters because, after using the multitool to convert the lsf file to lsX, an editable file, and having opened it with Notepad++, you will see a VERY long list with a lot of numbers and code. Do not be alarmed! Because if you use Ctrl+F to search for, example for Nettie, "apprentice", you will find a line of code that is made just for her, and below is a long list of all the characteristics she has, hair, skin, makeup, tatoos, skin color, hair color, genitals (unsure about armor) included, but, most importantly, HEAD section. Simply find any lines that say "head" and that match Nettie's head VisualResourceID (which can be seen here https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Modding:NPC_Head_Models as being 9334fb24-ddca-5187-4152-9945b512ce17 ) and replace them to, instead, re-direct the game to use instead another head (remember to match it with a Dwarf head as Nettie is a dwarf, for example using https://bg3.wiki/wiki/File:Fem_Dwarf_Head_1.png this head instead, of which VisualResourceID is 9816fbba-4e67-413a-9fec-cde00772a12a . Once every line has been replaced (it should be just one unless she has different forms I think), you can then delete everything BUT Nettie's lines of code from the file and call it differently too (like calling it Nettie ) as the game should still read and recognize it without issue. Afterwards, convert the lsX file back to lsF and then pack the result into a mod (DON'T call it "gustav.pak" and replace the original gustav.pak, it would conflict with a lot of things, NoAlphabets and Baldur's Better Aesthetics included, name it something you will remember, like, again, "Nettie"). You can now load your file (placing it into a .zip or archive file first), as a normal mod, and it should work without a problem.
Hope I made sense, I got lost while typing