Why are my armor textures purple in my mod, and how do i fix it?

[StephenP]

I’m trying to get a custom armor set working in my game, but the textures keep appearing as a solid purple color in the inventory and on my character. I’ve followed the modder’s installation guide exactly, making sure the mesh and texture file paths are correct in the creation kit. Has anyone else run into this specific asset pipeline problem and figured out what step usually causes it?

[SamuelL]

Purple in both inventory and world usually means the engine can't find the diffuse texture for that material. I’ve seen it happen when the texture path in the mesh/material is off by a folder name, or when the texture extension isn’t supported by the import pipeline. I fixed it by re-exporting the texture as DDS, then double-checking that the Creation Kit shows the diffuse map exactly at the path the mesh expects, including subfolders. I also made sure the material slot name matched the texture slot name (diffuse) and that there wasn't a second texture assigned by mistake. After that the purple went away.

[Anthony.W]

I had this once when the texture filename mismatched what the mesh referenced (uppercase vs lowercase). The engine ended up with a placeholder purple. Renamed the file to exactly the same name the mesh referenced and reimported; no more purple.

[AmeliaG]

Maybe the issue isn't the texture file at all but the material/shader; if the armor uses a custom shader in the mod package and the shader isn't loaded on your build, the engine might fill in with the purple placeholder. I didn't fix this by changing the shader, but I did notice it when I toggled the shader to the default. Do you also see it in other armors that use the same shader?