Cheat Sheet: Head

Summary

This page lists various properties of the player head. Use the Table of Contents or your browser's search (Hotkey: Ctrl+F) to quickly find what you're looking for.

Check Cheat Sheet: Character Creator for color values and appearances

Wait, this isn't what I'm looking for!

• If you want to edit the player's head, you need meshes and morphtargets.

• If you want to make a custom NPC, check NPV - V as custom NPC

• You can find much additional information about the player head under NPV: Preparing the head in Blender

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Head file paths

female	.mesh	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_female_average\h0_000_pwa_c__basehead\
female	.morphtarget	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_female_average
male	.mesh	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_man_average\h0_000_pwa_c__basehead\
male	.morphtarget	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_man_average

The folders contain the entire player head. The minimum amount of meshes rendered is 3 (head, teeth, eyes), and can go up to 13 (fem V)/14 (masc V).

Head file prefixes

h0_	head (with ears)
hb_	male V only: beard
heb_	eyebrows
he_	eyes
ht_	teeth
hx_	applied on top of h0: cyberware makeup freckles pimples tattoos scars
l1_	ear ring (01-04)

Complexions

Every complexion has its own associated texture file. These are sorted by body gender under

base\characters\head\wa\h0_001_wa_c__basehead\textures\h0_000_wa_c__basehead_d0X.xbm
base\characters\head\ma\h0_001_ma_c__basehead\textures\h0_000_ma_c__basehead_d0X.xbm

The files are ending in 01..05. Each complexion has its own appearance in the head mesh, e.g.:

03_ca_senna
03_ca_senna_d02
03_ca_senna_d03
03_ca_senna_d04
03_ca_senna_d05

Skin definitions

Skin materials are defined in the base head .mesh file (while the shape comes from the .morphtarget):

female body gender	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_female_average\h0_000_pwa_c__basehead\h0_000_pwa_c__basehead.mesh
male body gender	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_man_average\h0_000_pma_c__basehead\h0_000_pma_c__basehead.mesh

You can find the definitions in the localMaterialBuffer. Each material overrides the following properties locally:

• Normal (bump/height map)

• Albedo (diffuse/complexion)

All other properties are pulled from a .mi file in the following folder:

female body gender	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_female_average\h0_000_pwa_c__basehead\textures
male body gender	base\characters\head\player_base_heads\player_man_average\h0_000_pma_c__basehead\textures

Head: material instances

This section only lists .mi files used by the player head. To see which skin is which, check Cheat Sheet: Character Creator -> Skin tones

About half of these files are shared by NPCs. Editing or replacing these will affect all of Night City!

File name (use male_head for masc)	Shared with NPCs
female_head_01_ca_pale_00_warm_ivory.mi	❌
female_head_01_ca_pale.mi	✔
female_head_02_ca_limestone_00_beige.mi	❌
female_head_02_ca_limestone.mi	✔
female_head_03_ca_senna_00_amber.mi	❌
female_head_03_ca_senna_01_honey.mi	❌
female_head_03_ca_senna_02_band.mi	❌
female_head_03_ca_senna.mi	✔
female_head_04_ca_almond_00_umber.mi	❌
female_head_04_ca_almond.mi	✔
female_head_05_bl_espresso.mi	✔
female_head_06_bl_dark.mi	✔

Freckles / cheek make-up

For a list of freckles and make-up sorted by colour and skin type, see Cheat Sheet: Character Creator -> Cheek Makeup Style

Eyebrows

Every eyebrow option has an associated texture file, normal map, and alpha map.

These files can be found in the following folder:

base/characters/common/character_customisation_items/eyebrows/textures/

Provided below is a table with the eyebrows and their associated texture files.

Eyebrow	Diffuse Texture	Alpha Mask
01	heb__base_d01.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds01.xbm
02	heb__base_d02.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds02.xbm
03	heb__base_d03.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds03.xbm
04	heb__base_d04.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds04.xbm
05	heb__base_d05.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds05.xbm
06	heb__base_d06.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds06.xbm
07	heb__base_d07.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds07.xbm
08	heb__base_d08.xbm	heb_wa__base_ds08.xbm