So, at some point, I useed SetRace to change the race of Serana from NordRace, to NordRaceVampire, and then back to NordRace to fix an appearance bug. However, I have saved since then. I later realized that I didn't need to do that to fix it and forgot it was a bad idea before I did it I guess, idk. Doing this causes the face to no longer animate; she doesn't blink, express (like with MFG values/Expression Data), and her mouth doesn't move when talking; her face is a statue, basically a 3D afterimage,. And since it’s been like a year+ of save files since then, and only now, I'm finally annoyed enough to want to fix it in my save file, it's too late to just reload a save.
I've tried as many console commands as I can and after a decade and a half, I'm still convinced that Bethesda disabled Reset3DState's functionality before game release since it doesn't do anything ever. RecycleActor doesn't fix it, SetNPCWeight doesn’t fix it, ModifyFaceGen doesn’t fix it (expression data updated but doesn’t physically change the face, the expression data updates as normally still as seen with More Informative Console, but the values just don’t do anything to the model), and Resurrect 1 may break the NPC and remove changes (maybe too risky). Most of the commands I think can help me are useless or disabled after game development before the release. So yet again, it comes down to editing a save file.
Whatever it is, is in the save file and the easiest thing to do is delete it from the save, resasave, and then keep playing. But it's not a simple fix. Unless it is. It looks very simple. But it is outside the scope of what ReSaver can do (a recurring theme for that tool)
The ChangeFlag:
In: ChangeForms→ NPC_ → NPC_ (Dawnguard.esm) refid=02002b6c → ChangeFlags → 11 (1 is under the 11 and it needs to be 0.
I never changed the face; The game simply registers it as if I did when I cycled the appearance with SetRace that one time. My appearance overhaul for Serana is Savage Serana by Eeekie on the Nexus and that change doesn't really need the flag to be set to 1. Maybe I can disable the NPC Plugin Chooser 2 output that modifies Serana and re-enable Savage Serana as a separate plugin, Save my game, clean the new Save and SKSE Cosave, and then re-enable the NPC PLuging Chooser 2 output and disable the Savage Serana plugin, returning it to as it was before, clean again, and then keep playing. [TL;DR to striked section: It may help to swap the enable state of appearance-record-modifying plugins twice and save again and clean the saves between each step, loading and saving in-game as needed] That may change/blank the context of the 1 in ChangeFlag 11 but may not fix the issue or create more. Ultimately, the cleanest fix would be to change that 0 to 1 and have it switch back to one, fresh again, on loading of the new save.
I can delete the ChangeForm record from the save file but then, all the Faction changes, Nether's Follower Framework (NFF) import data, NFF added outfits, and everything else in the changelog is gone. The issue is the ChangeFlag within. I simply just need to change a single 1 to 0. One binary switch. Deleting the ChangeForm itself in ReSaver does and loading the Re-Saved ESS file with the change does fix the mouth movements, but all the other ChangeForm data is gone. I simply want that one ChangeFlag WITHIN the ChangeForm cleared, zeroed, or removed from the save.
Is this something that a batch clean in ReSaver could fix, get around some kind of lack of UI for what I need? but that could work only if ReSaver has the capability to modify ChangeFlags but no UI for it yet.
No change needs to be made in the corresponding SKSE Cosave.
Here is a visual reference of the issue (IMGUR link). since image uploading is not allowed here.
Here you can see the "ANALYZE RAW DATA" button that has no function yet, so it won't help
See also: this post from 6y ago. Not my post but this person needed this exact change 6 years ago and maybe nowadays there is a fix that there wasn't back then. I'm curious if the OP [u/phoenix1701](u/phoenix1701) ever found a way to do this.
I have well over a decade of experience modding this game and have tried every external modding tool that came out over the years, or at least it feels like I have, name one and I probably have used it, and ReSaver, although great and one of my faves, is always is very limited and barely lets you actually change much yet, even on the newest version. I need something more. So, don't be afraid to be as technical as you need to be.
A link to my modlist is not needed in this instance.